Jennifer Marohasy

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Guest Weblog by Bob Tisdale: Part 2 – Natural Variability of SSTs has NOT been Accounted for by the US CCSP

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Natural Variability of SSTs has NOT been Accounted for by the US CCSP.

In my first post at jennifermarohasy.com/blog, I noted a magnificent 0.9 deg C drop and rebound in North Pacific SSTs (sea surface temperatures). The anomaly occurs there between the late 19th to the early 20th centuries. Its impact is reflected in global SST anomaly data illustrated on the same graph:

2cyg07k(1).jpg

http://i25.tinypic.com/2cyg07k.jpg

The largest of the late 19th century explosive volcanic eruptions, Krakatau in 1883, was approximately the same magnitude as Mount Pinatubo, and the Mount Pinatubo eruption did not duplicate the effect on SSTs. Assuming that TSI (total solar irradiance) variations are not responsible, and since there have been no discussions in any scientific papers that I could find of an anthropogenic cause for the drop in SST during that period, that leaves Thermohaline Circulation (THC) or Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) as the driver.

A similar but lesser drop in SST occurs in the North Atlantic. This data set is the basis for the much studied Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO):

212s789(2).jpg

http://i27.tinypic.com/212s789.jpg

Referring to the first two illustrations, Global SST anomalies dropped 0.45 deg C from 1878 to 1910, then rebounded that amount plus 0.1 deg C from 1910 to 1941. I acknowledge that I cherry-picked the 1878 start date, but it’s used simply for illustration purposes. The AGW skeptical part of me looks at those graphs of Global SST anomalies and concludes that if a 0.45 decrease in SST is within the bounds of natural variability, a 0.45 deg C increase could also be natural, yet global SSTs haven’t come close to climbing 0.45 deg C above that 1878 starting temperature.

These THC/MOC oscillations are found in other SST data sets. The drop in SST during that period can also been seen in the data sets of THC upwelling points in both hemispheres of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans:

29c27v5(3).jpg

http://i27.tinypic.com/29c27v5.jpg

The placid South Pacific appears at first glance to contain more subtle SST oscillations, and it’s easy to see the influence of the North Pacific. However, as illustrated, the eastern half of the South Pacific also contains substantial oscillations that are independent of the North:

25allw2(4).jpg

http://i25.tinypic.com/25allw2.jpg

If we divide the east-central mid-latitude South Pacific by 10 degree longitudinal bands and plot those data sets, those oscillations become much more pronounced:

250s2t2(5).jpg

http://i35.tinypic.com/250s2t2.jpg

THC/MOC MISSING FROM THE NEW CCSP REPORT

The effects of North Atlantic and North Pacific THC/MOC on global SST anomalies are illustrated in the preceding. In the recently released draft of “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States”, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program briefly discusses the impacts of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation on SALMON PRODUCTION. Salmon production? I believe they missed the greater effects of those two natural variables, their influences on climate. I searched the CCSP document for “Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation “, for “thermohaline”, for “meridional”, for “overturning”, but the search feature of Adobe Reader returned the same message: “No matches were found.” I have to conclude from these oversights that the CCSP are either misinformed, or they have been misdirected, or they are attempting to mislead the public.

SOURCES

The graphs are from my series on Smith and Reynolds SST data:

http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2008/06/smith-and-reynolds-sst-posts.html

Sea Surface Temperature Data is Smith and Reynolds Extended Reconstructed SST (ERSST.v2) available through the NOAA National Operational Model Archive & Distribution System (NOMADS):

http://nomads.ncdc.noaa.gov/#climatencdc

Bob Tisdale

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Louis Hissink says

    Bob,

    AN extremely important fact to keep in mind is scale – in a previous guest post Lance Endersbee reproduced the oceans and atmosphere to natural scale here http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002310.html

    All the AGW discussion and theories concern a whisper thin gas layer on an even thinner liquid phase coating an enormous solid earth that, from the frequent eruptions of volcanoes, whether observed or not, experiences thermal fluctuations.

    The earth MUST be receiving enormous quantities of energy in order to cause partial melting at the upper mantle.

    This fluctuating thermal mass under our feet is essentially ignored. but it must affect the underlying thermal state of the liquid-vapour shell coating it.

    Therefore the source of your residual thermal anomalies is more than likely to be under the oceans, and Bruce Leybourne’s ideas related to surge tectonic is one possible solution to the obserations you make here.

    I would also suggest to all here to keep in mind the natural scale of things – we are essentially debating what goes on within a thin film of liuid/gas coating a massive thermally fluctuating planet.

  3. cohenite says

    The thing that strikes me is the upwelling graph; some incredibly pronounced and abrupt effects are being produced; I can’t help but think that McLean and Quirk are vindicated by this; they of course focused on only one upwelling; the South American West Coast 1976 event which is a standout in terms of the sudden and rapid change in SST response; this cessation of upwelling is documented in these 2 papers;

    http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/281/5374/240

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11832936

    The ’76 event also clearly dragged up the other areas SST’s and arguably caused the 1998 super El Nino. It is astounding that the CCSP report doesn’t acknowledge this phenomenon; but then, when I referred to it at Tamino’s, he banned me for pedalling crackpot ideas.

  5. Louis Hissink says

    And the scientific empiricists wander off to reform to brace the next irrational onslaught.

  6. Louis Hissink says

    The ’76 event also clearly dragged up the other areas SST’s and arguably caused the 1998 super El Nino. It is astounding that the CCSP report doesn’t acknowledge this phenomenon; but then, when I referred to it at Tamino’s, he banned me for pedalling crackpot ideas.

    For which the evidence is ?

  11. Bob Tisdale says

    Steve Short: The 1974 Fuego eruption had a DVI of 200, while Mount Pinatubo and Krakatau had DVIs of 1,000. They, Pinatubo and Krakatau, had little impact on SST at the time of their eruptions. The Fuego eruption should’ve had even less.

  12. janama says

    I flew past Mount Pinatubo in a 747 on my way to Hong Kong. It blew as we took off from Melbourne.
    The pilot said nothing as we veered away as we would have normally flown right over it.

  13. Gary Gulrud says

    “The placid South Pacific appears at first glance to contain more subtle SST oscillations”

    The SO is the heat sink, the NH radiator fins. The former will swing less. The Krakatau/Pinatubo contrast in effect reinforce this notion.

  14. Steve Short says

    Bob Tisdale: I was aware of the DVI (250) and WEI (4) of the 1974 Fuego eruption. BTW, there are well documented ‘problems’ with these rather outdated indices in terms of even just total sulfur emissions. I am happy to supply more references.

    http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19930016055_1993016055.pdf

    The so-called 1974 Fuego eruption and associated eruptions actually ran from 1974 – 1977. Further, what distinguishes the Fuego eruptions and activity amongst the nearby suite of active volcanos is that, globally they are very significant emitters of bulk SO2 over extended periods. They also tend to be active at the same time. Please refer:

    http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004JVGR..138..325R

    “Ground-based and aircraft correlation spectrometer (COSPEC) measurements at the principal active volcanoes in Guatemala (Pacaya, Santiaguito, Fuego, and Tacaná) and El Salvador (Santa Ana and San Miguel) were carried out at intervals during the period 1999 2002, as part of an attempt to measure baseline SO2 emissions of potentially dangerous volcanoes and to better understand their eruption mechanisms. We discuss some of the uncertainties involved in interpreting intermittent gas data, together with possible improvements. Other problems pertaining to current monitoring of SO2 and implications for future studies are also discussed. Santa Ana volcano is proposed to be a venting hydrothermal system, while Santiaguito, Fuego, Pacaya, and San Miguel all exhibit open-vent characteristics. Data for Tacaná volcano are presented, but are not enough to make descriptions of its characteristics and activity. Pacaya is emitting high fluxes of SO2 (>1000 tonnes/day), while the other vents are much lower emitters (20 300 tonnes/day in general). SO2 emissions at Pacaya suggest a large circulating and convecting high level chamber. The most recent emission rates at Fuego were measured during its current active phase (since January 2002). Average SO2 emission rates during 1999 – 2002 are: 1350 tonnes/day for Pacaya, 340 tonnes/day for Fuego, 120 tonnes/day for Santiaguito, 260 tonnes/day for San Miguel, 140 tonnes/day for Santa Ana, and 30 tonnes/day for Tacaná. These volcanoes account for about 6% to 12% of the estimated annual global volcanic output of SO2.”

    Fallout and rainout of volcanic materials can deliver significant N, Fe and Si nutrients to the ocean surface. If the fallout or rainout is also not too far away from the source there is still a considerable amount of sulfite salts in ratio to sulfate salts in aerosol form. Sulfite readily reduces Fe(II)) to Fe(II) (both in the air on aerosols and in water) the latter being the redox form of Fe required by cyanobacteria.

    Stimulation of primary productivity (i.e. masive cyanobacterial blooming) can be expected to occur especially close to high sulfur eruptions and volcanic emissions during wet months. This is turns leads to the marked physicochemical effects previously described by me in numerous posts.

    Cohenite simply noted: “…they of course focused on only one upwelling; the South American West Coast 1976 event which is a standout in terms of the sudden and rapid change in SST response; this cessation of upwelling is documented in these 2 papers;”

    I have proposed one possible plausible reason why such an event may have been potentiated on the South American West Coast in the 1970s. May I respectfully suggest that you look at some of the literature on large scale marine cyanobacterial blooms and at satellite photographs of such events. IMHO it is worh considering what the effect would be of fallout/rainout of large masses of S, N, Fe and Si into that part of ocean wherein El Nino arises.

    http://www.galapagosonline.com/nathistory/Oceanography/Currents.html

  17. SJT says

    Why would the scientists researching AGW be so concerned about the periodic changes in various systems.

    These oscillate around a fixed point, as they have done and as they will continue to do. AGW is jacking up the point. This is why the scientists are interested in “forcings”. They cause an overall change to a system.

  18. Bob Tisdale says

    Steve Short: I’ll bounce two more graphs back at you. In the first, I’ve added the Indian Ocean to the comparison of Mid-Latitude South Pacific and Global SST anomalies. It has a greater swing in temperature but follows the same general trends. I was working on a post today about the Indian Ocean; that’s the only reason for it.
    http://i36.tinypic.com/iwkumu.jpg

    Let me preface the second. It’s been said that NINO3.4 SST anomaly is the NINO data set of choice for estimating the global impact of ENSO. (The keeper of the MEI claims it’s best.) NINO3.4 also correlates well with the SO. But does NINO3.4 best represent the impact on South Pacific or global SSTs or the combined land + sea global temperature? To that end, I threw together a data set in which I created an area-weighted average of the SST anomalies of the NINO 1 through 4 grids. I put it together months ago (plotted the raw data but never smoothed it) and forgot about it until today, when I went looking for NINO3.4 data. I’ve added it to the comparison of Mid-Latitude South Pacific and Global SST anomalies in the following graph.
    http://i37.tinypic.com/209rpzb.jpg

    Comments?

  19. Mark says

    “Why would the scientists researching AGW be so concerned about the periodic changes in various systems.

    These oscillate around a fixed point, as they have done and as they will continue to do. AGW is jacking up the point. This is why the scientists are interested in “forcings”. They cause an overall change to a system.”

    Too bad they seem to have mistaken oscillations for forcings. That’s why their model and associated predications are complete crap!

  20. Steve Short says

    Thanks Bob.

    I can’t contribute much today – too much domestic stuff on but a few fast comments.

    (1) It appears to me that the Indian Ocean and Mid-Latitude South Pacific anomalies are more or less ‘in phase’. Would you agree?

    I could say a number of things about the 2nd graph but am mostly struck by:

    (2) the marked contrast between the strong negative NINO anomaly in the 1970s, the moderate (+0.1 C) positive Mid-Latitude South Pacific anomaly and the zero Global anomaly; and

    (3) the fact that, relative to the post-1950 Global and Mid-Latitude South Pacific anomalies the amplitude of the NINO anomaly oscillation appears to be weakening while at the same time the frequency of oscillation is increasing

    These latter effects are what I would expect from increasing frequency/magnitude of Mid-Latitude South Pacific primary productivity blooms (thus smoothing the weather effects of positive SST anomalies) with increasing atm. CO2.

    BTW, FYI as I am particularly interested in the relationship between CO2 – SSTs – primary productivity – weather, with respect to the SH, the number of CO2 monitoring stations only got respectable after 1980, I am forced to look closely only at the post 1980 period. I would be happy to send you a graph of some selected NH but mostly SH CO2 anomalies post-1980 FYI or even if you wish with the associated Excel data spreadsheet. How might I do this if you were interested?

    In a nutshell I certainly think it is worthwhile to look at CO2 anomalies for the post 1980 period as well and plot these on the same graphs as the T anomalies. I have simply chosen to define my CO2 anomalies in terms of % deviation relative to the NOAA global running mean. You may have a better idea and I’d be happy to discuss that with you or anyone else e.g. Ian Castles, Cohenite etc.

  21. cohenite says

    This is very chicken and eggy; Bob has shown that multiple ocean based climate systems are overarched by El Nino oscillations, and that the El Nino movements are related to upwellings; Steve’s blooms are responsible for a hemispheric asymmetry in CO2 levels which seem to have an effect on SST’s; this seems also to lend weight to the idea that if CO2 is more than just a marker of existing temp movement, as history strongly suggests, then that role will be as a -ve feedback to whatever temp trend is extant, with that temp trend due to entirely natural processes.

    In respect of those natural processes I’ve lost that good post that Bob did on solar in respect of the Scafetta and West work; if you can repost it Bob, that would be great,otherwise I’ll keeplooking.

  24. Steve Short says

    Cohenite: Yes, I’ve been aware of this for some time.

    Stunning isn’t it!

    The following statement sums it all up:

    “In general terms, the relative warming of the NH relative to the SH is something that we’re aware of, but isn’t the strength of the trend in the 30 years of satellite record astonishing? And this is nothing to do with UHI.”

    This realisation in fact is what led me (6 months ago – pre- this blog) to start looking at SO ‘CO2 residuals’ defined in the way I have done it to try to find out what is going on.

    This when I discovered that the mean annual CO2 level over the SO i.e. mean of all stations below 30 S started about =<0.3% below the global mean somewhere just before 1982 (with some weaker evidence of higher lags earlier), AND has INCREASINGLY lagged behind the global mean over the last 25 years AND now lags behind it by about 0.55% – just a hair’s breadth behind the warmer and presumably more primary productive Southeast Pacific Gyre (EIC Station).

    If it is essentially water vapour which amplifies CO2 then, in the broad scale oceanic weather effects i.e. SST, albedo, RH and lapse rate, of cyanobacterial primary productivity (driven by CO2 + N + Fe + Si fertilization – the latter 3 volcanically affected) we have the perfect candidate phenomenon for:

    (1) holding back SH temperatures (esp. SSTs) relative to NH; and

    (2) holding back SH CO2 levels relative to NH.

    I firmly believe this is the ‘smoking gun’ which is going to shoot AGW catastrophism stone dead in our lifetimes.

  26. Bob Tisdale says

    Steve Short: I’ve added an email link on my profile page, accessible down at the bottom of my blogspot page. I’ll leave that profile page up for a few days, then delete it. But I’ll forewarn you, I’ll put requests for spreadsheets or graphs on my to-do list and it may take a few days to get to them.

    NOAAs NOMADS system works from coordinates, so I’d need those for the areas you want to study.

    My suggested alternative is for you, or an associate, to become familiar with retrieving SST data from the NOMADS system. It’s easy. Then you don’t have to rely on my schedule. The following are the instructions prepared by Smith and Reynolds.

    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/sst/ERSST-ts.txt

    Warning, the data is split at longitude 180. If the area you’re interested in straddles it, you have to download two data sets and calculate the weighted average. If you try to retrieve it in one step, you’ll get a time series of SST data for that latitude that includes everything except for the data you want.

  27. SJT says

    “I firmly believe this is the ‘smoking gun’ which is going to shoot AGW catastrophism stone dead in our lifetimes. ”

    Honestly, you guys are unbelievable. It was predicted right from the start the SH would lag the NH, because the SH has more oceans to absorb the temperature rise than the NH. It’s panned out, exactly as predicted. Ignorance, however, once again rules.

  28. cohenite says

    Steve; the spectre of apocalypse, runnaway, tipping points, Venus, has always informed AGW; I don’t believe CO2 is an agent of heating, let alone catastrophic heating; historical sequences of CO2/temperature movements uniformly show CO2 to be the follower; hence IPCC’s ‘enhanced greenhouse’ whereby the CO2 latecomer kick starts H2O, and, more recently, the other more active anthropogenic GHG’s; the causality has never been straightforward and Spencer’s work indicates a greater, stochastic ‘negative’ feedback from H2O then enhancement; I had figured your cyanobacteria was a similar kettle of fish, but the hemispherical dichotomy may provide “a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter” opportunity for the AGWer’s; that is, the blooms are reducing CO2 in the SH with consequent anti-AGW effects, lower SST, RH etc; in the NH where the blooms are not active, CO2 is higher with consequent pro-AGW effects, higher temps, reduced ice etc and ‘enhanced greenhouse’ retains validity; or at least so the argument may proceed.

  30. Steve Short says

    Effe quid ad dictum simpliciter. Festina lente. Much, much more to come but in the meantime:

    Gregg et al. (2003) Ocean primary production and climate; Global decadal changes. Geophys. Res. Lett. Vol 30(15, 1809 doi:10.1029/2003GL016889,2003

    Gregg eta. (2005) Recent trends in global ocean chlorophyll. Geophys. Res. Lett. Vol 32, L0305 doi:10.1029/2004GL021808,2005

  31. Louis Hissink says

    SJT

    “Honestly, you guys are unbelievable. It was predicted right from the start the SH would lag the NH, because the SH has more oceans to absorb the temperature rise than the NH. It’s panned out, exactly as predicted. Ignorance, however, once again rules.”

    You do have a source for this startling information?

  32. Steve Short says

    Bob:

    Thanks for that. With respect to atm. CO2 it is very tricky to produce appropriate weightings for each measuring station within an entire zone (to characterize an entire zone) such as the SO because, in theory, the weightings should be done according to (say) the respective annual ‘wind rose’ directional and velocity distributions for each, normalizes to the zone as a whole. In theory, SSTs should also be weighted according to the equivalent ‘current rose’ and current velocity distributions but in practice this is never done. For this reason, for the SO I have used the simple mean (and Std. Devn.) of all annual mean anomalies, computed from all monthly anomalies. FYI I have also used the following areas for global ocean basins (units of 10^7 km^2) as defined by SEAWIFS and CZCS:
    N. Atlantic 1.83
    N. Pacific 2.32
    N. Central Atlantic 1.53
    N. Central Pacific 3.22
    N. Indian 0.46
    Eq. Atlantic 1.15
    Eq. Pacific 3.72
    Eq. Indian 1.37
    S. Atlantic 1.20
    Antarctic 8.28
    S. Pacific 2.69
    S. Indian 1.77
    Antarctic (= Southern Ocean) 8.28
    Total 29.73

    Getting back to the issue of where oceanic primary productivity has been going over recent decades, I’d like to point out in connection with your NPR and the nexus around 1976 highlighted by Cohenite that was well known that between 1968 and the mid-1980s there was a significant increase in total chlorophyll a in the water column during the summer in the central North Pacific Ocean. A concomitant increase in winter winds and a decrease in sea surface temperature suggested that long-period fluctuations in atmospheric characteristics had changed the productivity carrying of the central Pacific. But may it was vice versa!

    Venrick et al. (1987) Climate and Chlorophyll a: Long-Term Trends in the Central North Pacific Ocean. Science 2 October 1987:
    Vol. 238. no. 4823, pp. 70 – 72
    DOI: 10.1126/science.238.4823.70

    I have posted above references which point to the fact that some satellite measurements of chlorophyll a suggest marked decreases in oceanic primary productivity in some ocean basins over the period 1979 – 2002.

    However later measurements also showed marked increases up to 60% and 23% off on the Califonia/Mexican Shelf and Peru/Chile Shelf of 60% and 23% respectively over the period 1998 – 2003, coincidentally crossing the most recent period of activity of Fuego and its related suite of volcanos!

    However, it needs to be realised that there are complex and controversial sensing issues with satellite chlorophyll a estimations.

    http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20070035765_2007034173.pdf

  34. Steve Short says

    Bob/Cohenite

    Here is the relationship between sea surface chlorophyll a (i.e. a key measure of cyanobacterial primary productivity) as measured by the OBPG SeaWiFS satellite processed colour sensing and the daytime SSTs as measured via 11 micron sensing by the MODIS Aqua satellite across the Southern Ocean (SO) (below 30S) for recent years.

    Notice the marked seasonal component to primary productivity and the remarkable offset between primary productivity and SSTs. This latter feature shows that for the SO at least it is not SST which drives primary productivity – it is in fact the preceding pulse of CO2 dissolving in the water which allows productivity to rise.

    http://reason.gsfc.nasa.gov/OPS/cgi-bin/Giovanni/Giovanni_cgi.pl?west=-180&north=-30&east=180&south=-90&type=3%23Time+Plot+%28point+or+area+averaging%29&Product_A=0%23%23%23SeaWiFS+Chlorophyll+a+concentration&Product_B=5%23%23%23Aqua+Sea+Surface+Temperature+%2811+micron+day%29&landocean=landocean&b_year=1997&b_month=September&e_year=2008&e_month=February&end_date=2008%2F02%2F29&data_limit=126&cbar=cpre&cmin=&cmax=&tpbar=tpdyn&tpmin=&tpmax=&tpint=&asc_res=1.0&global_cfg=.%2Fglobal.cfg.pl&data_sys=mpcomp&pid=ocean&action=Generate+Plot

    BTW, I heartily recommend use of this NASA site:

    http://reason.gsfc.nasa.gov/OPS/Giovanni/mpcomp.ocean.2.shtml

    One of the things the SeaWiFS satellite chlorophyll a measurements show during the last decade is just how volcanic action does stimulate downwind primary productivity. The most dramatic example of that is the continual high primary productivity on the East Patagonia Coastal Shelf region – downwind of the perpetually active Andean volcanoes of Western Patagonia and Southern Chile.

  35. Steve Short says

    Here is a clear proof, over the last 6 years of record, from the East Patagonia Coastal Shelf of the pronounced capacity of seasonal cyanobacterial blooming to markedly depress SST:

    http://reason.gsfc.nasa.gov/OPS/cgi-bin/Giovanni/Giovanni_cgi.pl?west=-80&north=36&east=-55&south=-56&type=3%23Time+Plot+%28point+or+area+averaging%29&Product_A=0%23%23%23SeaWiFS+Chlorophyll+a+concentration&Product_B=5%23%23%23Aqua+Sea+Surface+Temperature+%2811+micron+day%29&landocean=landocean&b_year=1997&b_month=September&e_year=2008&e_month=February&end_date=2008%2F02%2F29&data_limit=126&cbar=cpre&cmin=&cmax=&tpbar=tpdyn&tpmin=&tpmax=&tpint=&asc_res=1.0&global_cfg=.%2Fglobal.cfg.pl&data_sys=mpcomp&pid=ocean&action=Generate+Plot

    It is interesting to note that the effect is most pronounced in the most recent late 2007-8 season.

  37. Barbara91 says

    In fact, there is no reason to ask God for healings in the first place, since they are all either available or unavailable based on scientific means. ,