THERE are only ever a small number of scientists who can explain a phenomenon from first principles and these experts will often speak in jargon that is unintelligible[1]. But every so often one comes across a real expert who appears to not only have a deep understanding of a subject area, but can also write with clarity on that subject.
The oceanographer the late Robert E. Stevenson [2] wrote a short article for Science and Technology Magazine in 2000 disputing the popular consensus on how the oceans warm [3]. In the following extract from ‘Yes, the Ocean has Warmed; No, It’s Not Global Warming’, Dr Stevenson claims that:
1. Sunlight directly heats the ocean to a certain depth, up to 100 metres;
2. The ocean heat balance is maintained by heat loss to the atmosphere, not to the deep ocean; and
3. Infrared radiation from greenhouse gases heats only the top few millimetres of the ocean and as a consequence is soon dissipated by evaporation.
Quoting Dr Stevenson:
“Warming the ocean is not a simple matter, not like heating a small glass of water. The first thing to remember is that the ocean is not warmed by the overlying air.
Let’s begin with radiant energy from two sources: sunlight, and infrared radiation, the latter emitted from the “greenhouse” gases (water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and various others) in the lower atmosphere. Sunlight penetrates the water surface readily, and directly heats the ocean up to a certain depth. Around 3 percent of the radiation from the Sun reaches a depth of about 100 meters.
The top layer of the ocean to that depth warms up easily under sunlight. Below 100 meters, however, little radiant energy remains. The ocean becomes progressively darker and colder as the depth increases. It is typical for the ocean temperature in Hawaii to be 26°C (78°F) at the surface, and 15°C (59°F) at a depth of 150 meters.
The infrared radiation penetrates but a few millimeters into the ocean. This means that the greenhouse radiation from the atmosphere affects only the top few millimeters of the ocean. Water just a few centimeters deep receives none of the direct effect of the infrared thermal energy from the atmosphere! Further, it is in those top few millimeters in which evaporation takes places. So whatever infrared energy may reach the ocean as a result of the greenhouse effect is soon dissipated.
The concept proposed in some predictive models is that any anomalous heat in the mixed layer of the ocean (the upper 100 meters) might be lost to the deep ocean. There have been a number of studies in which this process has been addressed (Nakamura 1997; Tanimoto 1993; Trenberth 1994; Watanabi 1994; and White 1998). It is clear that solar-related variations in mixed-layer temperatures penetrate to between 80 to 160 meters, the average depth of the main pycnocline (density discontinuity) in the global ocean. Below these depths, temperature fluctuations become uncorrelated with solar signals, deeper penetration being restrained by the stratified barrier of the pycnocline.
Consequently, anomalous heat associated with changing solar irradiance is stored in the upper 100 meters. The heat balance is maintained by heat loss to the atmosphere, not to the deep ocean.”
Resolving these issues is fundamental to understanding not only global warming but also the topical and related issue of ocean acidification.
************
Links, And
1. How Scientific Ideas Become Fashionable (Part 1)
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/07/how-scientific-ideas-become-fashionable-part-1/
2. Robert Stevenson received a Ph.D. degree in oceanography from the University of Southern California in 1954.
Career Highlights:
1953-59 Director of Inshore Research, Hancock Foundation, USC
1959 Special Research Oceanographer, U.S. Office of Naval Research, London, England
1961-63 Research Scientist in the Dept. of Oceanography and Director of the Marine Lab, Texas A&M University
1963-65 Research Scientist, Oceanographic Institute, and Associate Professor, Depts. of Geology and Meteorology, Florida State University
1965-70 Assistant Laboratory Director and Acting Laboratory Director, Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, Biological Laboratory, Galveston, Tex.
1970-85 Scientific Liaison Officer, Office of Naval Research, SIO, La Jolla
1985-88 Scientific Liaison Officer and Deputy Director, Space Oceanography, ONR, SIO, La Jolla
From his NASA-Gemini days in the 1960s to the present time, Stevenson served as an oceanographer consultant to many astronauts.
In 1987 Stevenson was appointed the Secretary General of the International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans (IAPSO) and served an eight-year term. In this position, he brought oceanographers from around the world together to share knowledge in support of oceanographic research. He organized and conducted two major International Scientific Oceanographic Assemblies as part of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, in Vienna in 1991, and in Honolulu in 1995. In addition to working as Secretary General for IAPSO, Stevenson continued to work as a consultant to NASA instructing astronauts on earth observation from space.
http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=131
3. Yes, the Ocean Has Warmed: No, It’s Not ‘Global Warming’ by Robert E. Stevenson
In 21st Century Science and Technology Magazine, Summer 2000
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/ocean.html
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Well Jen – not for the faint-hearted – if you want simple explanations then this is not a good topic – 5 details posts on Science of Doom (SoD) went through this issue. The last being http://scienceofdoom.com/2011/01/18/the-cool-skin-of-the-ocean/ and you can link to the other four posts on “does back radiation heat the ocean”.
But Jen given your love of unbridled empiricism you might find this graph on skin surface response to infrared most interesting http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/09/why-greenhouse-gases-heat-the-ocean/
Additionally we do have good modelling studies examining observational data that tease this issue apart http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/docs/pierce_et_al_jcli939_rev2B.pdf
“The increase in ocean heat content in PCM is driven by an 0.7 Wm2 increase in net surface heat flux over the world’s oceans since 1960”
“The ensemble common model fingerprint of ocean warming due to anthropogenic forcing agrees well with observed ocean warming in the top 100 m of the water column, explaining about 80%–90% of the observed variance (globally and decade averaged). The warming is outside the envelope expected from natural variability, both internal and external (solar and
volcanic fluctuations) to the climate system.”
And even more recently ARGO observations show that temperature is being sunk to depth http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2012GL051106.shtml – even the Southern Ocean is showing warming to 4 kilometres depth http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20113011-22897.html
All without a solar driver.
It’s a non issue and Stevenson is out of date.
Resident Dipstick
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2012GL051106.shtml – paywalled, unbridled greed
And that’s the only link from your arm-waving post to “unbridled” empiricism, whatever that piece of silly, malignant snark means
Oceans are full of currents and eddies with step variations in temperature within a relatively small volume. Applying this to the huge area and depth of the world’s oceans it makes the chances of accurately measuring an “average” temperature let alone a “trend” even with 3500 Argo buoys a faint hope.
But of course not beyond selective adjustments, assumptions and GCMs.
“paywalled, unbridled greed”
Thats so the precious dears and their corrupted and collusive PR systems, can shield it from the prying eyes of the mere mortals, who paid for the work in the first place.
In no other area of human development and endeavour are such unprincipled practices been allowed to persist for so long….and all the while the participants remain silent.
This is not an area where I have any great familiarity though reading Stevenson’s article did bring back memories of getting very sea-sick lomg ago, during undergraduate work experience on CSIRO Fisheries’ boat taking water samples off Cronulla. I wondered where the data came from for the statement: ‘Around 3 percent of the radiation from the Sun reaches a depth of about 100 meters’ and went to Stevenson’s 2000 article.
So I was surprised by the flow of logic in the conclusions:
(3) that the planet will not warm from any man-produced increases in CO2; indicating
(4) any increases in temperature will likely fit the global trend of +0.048°C/decade, that is, about 0.5°C this century— the rate of warming that has existed since the Little Ice Age, centered around 1750 in Europe, South America, and China; suggesting
(5) that the heat storage in the upper ocean takes place in the upper 100 meters, and the magnitude provides a rise in temperature at those depths of 0.5°C in the past 50 years (in those parts of the ocean for which we have data).
I think he means in (5) that ‘BECAUSE …heat storage etc., otherwise we’d have a nonsense of no global warming leading to heat storage only in the upper 100m! ‘ But I still don’t know how reliable the statement re 100m is (and this is just as an example), and I’m not going to take it on faith just because he was an eminent oceanographer who could write clearly.
On balance, I think it makes sense that air temperature increase is not a primary factor in ocean warming at least in the short term, but Stevensons’s ‘clarified’ text is just a list of take-it-or-leave-it statements which I have no way of evaluating. So I should accept it at face value as opposed to more complex, detailed writings? Just because he was an expert (12 years ago)?
I find the chart published in the Economist on 2 May last helpful;
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/05/daily-chart-1
By using Joules of ocean heat content the numbers and the chart give the impression that the situation is deteriorating quickly.
A calculation shows that if the heat content continues to rise at the rate of 5 X 10^21 joules per year as appears the case over the last 40 years then the ocean will be one degree warmer in about 14 centuries from now.
There is one effect that it is hard to allow for. If cloud cover over the oceans increases at night, radiation from the ocean surface to deep space will decrease and more of the daytime heat gain will be retained.
It is worth noting that there is about 280-290 times as much ocean than there is atmosphere by weight.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/
I wouldnt worry about it John.
According to this major study Most Peer Reviewed Science is Wrong, and in the case of GW, just a confirmation of the prevailing biases.(see further down in the study report)
You would never have guessed that in a million years….. guffaw
At issue, and not clarified by the links provided by Luke or comment from Jeanette and other, is the capacity of an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide to actual heat the ocean. In short our understanding of the basic physics of heat transfer has not changes since 2000 when the article was written. There appears general agreement, including from a quick scan of the links kindly provided by LUke, that any increase in short wave infrared radiation from an increase in carbon dioxide will not penetrate to any depth in water… That this wave length can only penetrate water to the depth of millimeters. Is there agreement here?
Jeannette.
“because he was an expert (12 years ago)?”
Oh dear me!
twelve years now takes on biblical proportion?
Like listening to young girl calling her teacher (29) ‘really really’ old
Yes but the physics is much more complex than that as SoD’s links will show and the modelling paper also. The realclimate link shows some good evidence that increased LW does warm the surface. Have you digested SoD’s material and Pierce et al – I’d be impressed if you have.
Also if you reject all that you then need to explain a warming trend sunk to depth in all ocean basins with no warming driver.
Hey nasty Ianl – soon as I read dipstick I stopped reading what you had to say.
Luke et al.
I am trying to just get a handle on the fundamentals – especially before we move to ocean acidification because that theory really is complex – can we agree that:
1. Sunlight directly heats the ocean to many metres depth, up to 100 metres; and
2. Infrared radiation (from greenhouse gases) directly heats the ocean to a few millimetres depth, up to 6 millimetres.
Lets not worry about consequences at this stage.
Twelve years ago. Year 2000, AC/DC came out with Safe in New York City.
The band performs in a tunnel with a squadron of police stationed at each entrance.
Wonder what they were trying to say?
Yep and the resulting cool skin of the ocean reduces the heat transfer the atmosphere, which is the rub.
Advection and currents further disperse heat.
Here is Wet Blanket Larry’s stooopid question of the day: What about undersea volcanism? If undersea eruptions increase or decrease overall, wouldn’t that affect average ocean temperature?
If a major ocean current increases, decreases, or shifts, wouldn’t that affect the thermal plumes through which it passes? If a given thermal plume above a hot spot on the mid-ocean ridge becomes less hindered or less turbulent, couldn’t that increase the rate of heat transfer from the ocean to the atmosphere, or decrease the rate of heat transfer in the opposite direction?
Did they factor in all the fish flappin’? Raising boils on the sea. Churning the water up to a froth.
Besides I have evidence.
Imagine you have planet ‘A’, with no atmosphere, and planet ‘B’, with a strong greenhouse gas atmosphere, orbiting together at the same distance from a stable G-type star.
Will planet ‘B’s surface temperature be higher or lower than planet ‘A’?
If you answered the question, you got it wrong. The surface temperature on both planets is the same.
“Back radiation” – there is no such thing.
Issues that have to be considered when deciding about whether the ocean can be heated and by how much include the conductivity. If the ocean surface is losing heat faster than it is gaining it from above and beneath, it will cool and become denser than the water below. This does happen and the adjustment is a physical overturning which brings warmer water to the surface and cooler water below. This type of oceanic action shows that generally the ocean must be density stratified which will be dependant on both temperature and composition.
A higher density due to composition can move water to a lower level where it would cool to the ambient. The heat flow will still be toward the surface outside the denser area. The Gorebull Warmers must postulate a mechanism to increase the temps of dense water. Of course, if the water is dense, why is it near the surface where it will be warmed?? Basically we are talking a small effect which conduction and overturning will handle easily.
Remember this is not the large scale overturning associated with the thermohaline, but, more localized and dependent on heat flows.
Jennifer,
Quickly, I have a recollection that somewhere there are graphs showing EMR absorption spectra in water. They show that IR penetration is around six orders of magnitude less than visible. (blue goes down to around 100m in clear seawater). Some have translated that backradiation would only penetrate nanometres in seawater. If that is so, not only would evaporation result in rapid loss of the IR absorbed, but re-radiation from the surface molecules would intuitively also be significant. I have to go out for a while and will see if I can find more info later.
Oh and of course visible and UV has very little reflection on water except when the sun is low in the sky. (something the alarmists fail to acknowledge in high latitudes, when talking about feedback from snow/ice melt.
Shame on the Minister for Truth quoting an article from biomedicine and trying to generalise it to all peer reviewed research. “Research findings from underpowered, early-phase clinical trials would be true about one in four times, or even less frequently if bias is present. Epidemiological studies of an exploratory nature perform even worse, especially when underpowered, but even well-powered epidemiological studies may have only a one in five chance being true” … under specific assumptions.There was no mention of Global warming as implied. He should be banned for bringing this blog into disrepute!
Incredibly China closes in on the Europe for per capita emissions of co2.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/19/per-capita-co2-emissions-in-china-reach-european-levels/#more-67817
Well bazza is getting upset because I made a reference to a PR assessment that covers PR in general as well in the domain of epidemiology….
I thought there was a specific reference within the documents cited …all of them… to GW science but its does seem that I got it wrong as i cannot relocate it.
With that admission however I am not backing off on the generality of how unsafe and unreliable is PR as applied to GW science.
There is a veritable mountain of evidence to support this if one bothers to go looking for it. Try this for starters.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmichaels/2011/06/16/peer-review-and-pal-review-in-climate-science/
http://publicationethics.org/blogs
Dare one also mention how PR failed to sieve out the latest farce, involving Karoly and Gergis where they went public with their paper, AFTER PR ,only to have to withdraw it, because of the flaws found by others outside of the PR process,eg the blogosphere
As for the farcical claim that I brought this blog into disrepute I would have thought that with this one error, others are way ahead of me.
For continuing abuse and belligerence,and mis-quoting, references being taken out of context, and extending over many years now, the dipstick beats all comers.
But I guess that’s alright, as long as you are a welded on warmist heh
Truthy – all matter has anti-matter. Perhaps you should reflect on your own deportment and diplomatic style.
A new paper published by GRL describes how oceans have warmed by 0.09c over the last 55 years. IOW nothing happening from the GE:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/16/trenberths-missing-heat-still-missing-new-paper-shows-a-flat-ocean-temperature-trend-0-09c-over-the-past-55-years/
Well that just makes my day
The gold standard hypocrisy involved is just wonderful ..you of all people lecturing anyone about diplomacy and style is a hoot
…havent had such a good laugh for yonks.
And right back at ya !
Spangled – try thinking – 0.09C is a volume averaged mean ! sheesh
Expanding on my quick commenta above; Re Graphs on EMR absorption in liquid water.
Here is something:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/chemical/watabs.html
The lower of the two graphs shows an approximation of incoming sunlight, and it is interesting that its near infrared is a substantial proportion of sunlight, but much of it will be absorbed in the atmosphere, notably in water vapour and clouds. Remember that the incoming near visible IR comes from a colour temperature of ~6,000K, whereas Erath’s surface and backradiation would come from a rather lowly earthly colour T.
Here is another graph but with the x axis the other way around. It too shows some six orders of magnitude difference between solar visible and earthly radiation. (at 15C or colder)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Water_absorption_spectrum.png
Next graph shows how the IR from the average ~15C Earth’s surface is at longer wavelengths than incoming solar IR, and it’s even colder higher in the atmosphere for any back radiation.
http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/images/ElectromagRadiationFromSun.jpg
How can you doubt a loving creator after seeing what Bob posted there. Thank you Jesus for putting the visual spectrum right in water vapors window.
Jennifer,
You seem to subscribe to the notion that IR from the atmosphere (effectively energy originally radiated off the surface, absorbed by greenhouse gases above it and then reemitted back down, i.e. ‘back radiation’) can do thermodynamic work on the ground/sea surface. This is like saying that the surface can heat itself, be its own heat source. If this was the way that IR from the atmosphere caused the skin to warm, in a direct fashion, then the 1st law of thermodynamics would’ve been violated. You cannot double count energy in this way. If the surface got warmer through such a mechanism, then, next time around, it would radiate off the energy it received from the sun + the energy it got back from itself THROUGH the atmosphere. This is deeply unphysical.
A surface which is dependent on another surface for its heat, can never itself heat the other surface. This is what the situation is like in our earth system. The atmosphere is heated by the surface. Not the other way around.
What the atmosphere can and does do, is reduce heat loss from the surface. This is what the RealClimate tricksters observed, but neglected to recognize, at Tangaroa. The clouds changed the energy exchange, the net heat flux from the surface to the atmosphere, reducing the rate of radiative heat loss from the surface. Of course the skin warmed. But it was certainly not from direct heating by atmospheric ‘back radiation’! Don’t forget, the surface is already warmer than the atmosphere!
However, the problem that a hypothesis purporting to explain the gain in global OHC through a reduction in radiative heat loss with an increased greenhouse effect would run into, is the fact that the ocean, especially and importantly in the tropics, preferably rids itself of received energy through transfer of latent heat (evaporation) in conjunction with the process of convection. The grand operation of an isolated and gradual RADIATIVE imbalance such as the above would simply never get off the ground. The net effect would hardly be detected. There is only one source of energy input to the system (the Sun), but 3(4) means of getting the energy back out again. Radiation is but one of these. There is no physical reason to assume or postulate that the other mechanisms within the same integrated and dynamic heat loss system would remain static during a change in one of them. The system would simply respond to the perturbation by suitably adjusting itself. On short time scales like the cloud experiment (and remember, clouds are NOT CO2, they’re much more potent!) in Tangaroa, we would see an, albeit tiny, effect. But on longer time scales … The effect would be neutralized. And/or drowned out.
Cheers,
Kristian
Jen,
In a ‘controlled’ environment the fundmamentals are correct.
Although my answer relates to fresh water that has a different EC to sea water, the basic answer to your questions are yes.
However, variables such as evaporation, turbidity, flow/current, volume & clarity radically alter the ability of water to store/conduct heat (among other things).
In an area like mine it is easy to notice how important those variables are.
eg. Water in the river is a different temp to the water in the channel right beside it which is a different temp to the water in the storage which is a different temp to the water in rice bays which is a different temp to the water running through a citrus crop etc etc.
Minister for Truth @ 3:41 pm
I wonder how good bazza thinks the peer review process was for MBH98 and MBH99 hockeysticks in top journals Nature and GRL?
And of this: http://joannenova.com.au/2012/07/medieval-warm-period-found-in-120-proxies-roman-era-similar-to-early-20th-century/#more-22787
And of this: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/17/another-paper-refutes-the-mann-made-hockey-stick-mwp-was-1c-warmer-than-current-temperatures/#more-67606
And more.
Spangled – try thinking – 0.09C is a volume averaged mean ! sheesh
Yeah Luke. EXACTLY!
But only you could believe it.
Does it occur to you that the error bars would be ten times this amount of warming?
James Mayeau,
A little bit of music for you….
Luke: Nice to see you’re continuing to attempt to support the AGW hypothesis. It’s a losing proposition, but you can keep trying. You linked the RealClimate guest post by Peter Minnett about his field trip measurements of the impact of downward longwave radiation on ocean skin temperatures. I note that there is no peer-reviewed paper linked to his discussion. Has he published those results anywhere else other than at RealClimate, Luke? If so, please provide a link. I looked but couldn’t find it in his CV.
You faulted Jennifer in your closing comment, advising her that the Stevenson discussion was out of date, but then YOU turn around link the 2005 Pierce et al paper that uses out-of-date (2001) NODC OHC data as the observations source and two climate models that cannot model natural processes such as ENSO with any skill. Climate models two generations later still show no skill at being able to simulate the processes associated with ENSO. ENSO distributes warm water from the tropics toward the mid latitudes of the Pacific. Most people understand that function of ENSO. Yet the IPCC’s models in the CMIP3 archive for AR4 and the CMIP5 archive for the upcoming AR5 show no abilities toward that end. This can be seen by comparing the linear trends of the model mean (CMIP3 and CMIP5) and the satellite-based sea surface temperature observations for the Pacific Ocean on a zonal mean basis, from the Southern Ocean to the Bering Strait.
http://i45.tinypic.com/huexxs.jpg
Let’s take a quick look at the most recent version of the NODC OHC data (0-700m) which is associated with your Levitus et al (2012) “ARGO observations” link. The third bullet point in the opening of that Levitus et al paper reads “The warming can only be explained by the increase in atmospheric GHGs.” Maybe the NODC needs to examine their own data a little more closely before making statements like that. Their North Pacific OHC data shows it cooling from 1955 to 1988, and cooling at a rapid pace. The vast majority of the warming occurs during a 2-year period of 1989 to 1990, and that’s a response to a shift in North Pacific sea level pressure. Where’s the greenhouse gas-driven warming of the North Pacific before 1988, Luke?
http://i48.tinypic.com/14kcnyd.jpg
Are you aware, Luke, that Tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content cools between the 3-year La Niña events of 1954/55/56/57 and 1973/74/75/76 and 1998/99/00/01? In other words, the only time Tropical Pacific OHC warms significantly is during those 3-year La Niña events. Are you aware that Tropical Pacific OHC rises during La Niña events because the stronger trade winds reduce cloud cover, allowing an increase in downward shortwave radiation (visible sunlight) to warm the tropical Pacific Ocean to depth? Are you aware that in the NINO3.4 region the rise in surface Downward Shortwave Radiation can be as high as 85 watts/m^2 between El Niño and La Niña phases? Where’s the greenhouse gas-driven warming of the Tropical Pacific between major La Niña events, Luke?
http://i47.tinypic.com/k0q0bo.jpg
Are you aware, Luke, if we shift the “official” NOAA La Niña months for those three 3-year La Niña events by 9 months to account for the lag in response of the other ocean basins, that Tropical (24S-24N) Ocean Heat Content also does not rise between those 3-year La Niña events? Where’s the greenhouse gas-driven warming of the Tropical OHC between major La Niña events, Luke?
http://i47.tinypic.com/1zz27tg.jpg
The North Atlantic has a massive increase in OHC since 1955, with a linear trend that’s more than 2.5 times higher than that of the global oceans. Are you aware, Luke, that the warming of the North Atlantic has been attributed to natural causes? Perhaps you should read Lozier et al (2008) “The Spatial Pattern and Mechanisms of Heat-Content Change in the North Atlantic” identifies the driver of decadal North Atlantic OHC variability. Link:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/319/5864/800?rss=1
Lozier et al (2008) found that “…the large-scale, decadal changes in wind and buoyancy forcing associated with the NAO is primarily responsible for the ocean heat-content changes in the North Atlantic over the past 50 years.” They write in the abstract, “The total heat gained by the North Atlantic Ocean over the past 50 years is equivalent to a basinwide increase in the flux of heat across the ocean surface of 0.4 ± 0.05 watts per square meter. We show, however, that this basin has not warmed uniformly: Although the tropics and subtropics have warmed, the subpolar ocean has cooled. These regional differences require local surface heat flux changes (±4 watts per square meter) much larger than the basinwide average. Model investigations show that these regional differences can be explained by large-scale, decadal variability in wind and buoyancy forcing as measured by the North Atlantic Oscillation index. Whether the overall heat gain is due to anthropogenic warming is difficult to confirm because strong natural variability in this ocean basin is potentially masking such input at the present time.”
Where’s the greenhouse gas-driven warming of the North Atlantic, Luke? Lozier et al couldn’t find it.
Have a good day.
Bob-FJ – surely you’re not going to simply BELIEVE that paper. Steve McIntyre hasn’t audited it yet. It’s probably wrong like most paeleo papers. And you guys routinely reject Nature and GRL and reckon peer review is bunk – surely now you’re not going to accept them? HAHAHAHAHA
Debbie – hahahahahaha – that’s why models were invented. I’m still laughing. Thanks for playing.
Insight into Spangles mentality – the number is small from his personal experience so …..
that’s scepo-logic
“The heat content of the World Ocean for the 0–2000 m
layer increased by 24.0 plus/minus 1.9 x 1022 J (plus/minus 2S.E.) ”
yuh yuh yuh
Ah Bob – glad to see you still believe in Jacks Beanstalk where big things arise magically with no explanations. Surely Bob – you are not going to be so hypocritical as to demand PUBLISHING !! The great unpublished Bob – “I simply haven’t got time” I’ll just put a few factoids together Bob. Bob thinks all the Argo floats live in his areas of interest.
Bob your home cooked little nit picky analyses are now legendary. Now Bob – given your new love of published peer review I’ll not waste any time of your gish gallop of unpublished home cooking. Come back when you have published eh?
Let’s just look at one simple published analysis of global sea temperatures. The most simple analysis you could do – now repeated if you talk to the authors and more up to date – but nevertheless the point is made. http://www2.gi.alaska.edu/~bhatt/CJC/Parkeretal_2007.pdf
Wonder what EOF1, EOF2 and EOF3 are? Hmmmm
And Bob have you discovered Atlantic decadal variability – Well I never. Op cit. Toddle pip !
Guys, I simply don’t believe anybody knows what’s going on with the oceans and heat. By all means, spend billions on finding out more; but would we really be trying to stretch and squeeze current knowledge in this way if it weren’t for the wider climate agenda?
I dismiss every claim to final knowledge on a stupendously complex subject by looking at the how quickly research and conclusions go out of date. Most of what’s fresh now will be on the nose in under a decade. Try citing some material from around 2000 or before and you’ll likely be told it’s a relic. That happy baby of a “finding” you’re cradling now will be a dinosaur before your favourite TV show gets cancelled. I just like to get in early and say everybody is wrong who thinks they have substantial answers on oceans, atmosphere etc. By the very logic of the swingin’, up-to-date crowd, I can’t go wrong. I just have to wait, and not too long.
Seriously, publish-or-perish is a disaster for civilisation. It’s irrational, jungle-bunny stuff. I vote we spend billions on more Challengers and more Argos, but – please! – stop publishing or we’ll all perish!
I’m not an admirer of superstar French philosophers, but I think Bruno Latour made a big point when he called his best known book “We Were Never Modern”. Let’s accept human nature, (okay, it helps to be a conservative for that ) and be quick to recognise the cultishness, conformism and careerism that will inevitably make its way into every field, however advanced and scholarly:
http://newhumanist.org.uk/2836/the-cult-of-science
Thanks for that Bob-FJ
They will get added to the collection … I found this just recently and although not a fan of Monbiot this seems to have been well researched, and the comments are a mine of further information
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist
There is a slow trend for publically funded research outcomes being placed in an Open Access location, as a condition of receiving grant money..as it should be…
I cant believe how slow the progress has been with making improvements to what is obviously a deeply flawed process of ranking and review for something that is paid for by the tax payers in the first place…. and that the authers sign over the rights to the publisher as a condition.
But thankfully Princeton University et al has said crap to that ..we keep the rights/patents or whatever and the results are free and open for all to see.
There are any number of ways of making this whole process more transparent and cost effective and take it out of the grubby hands of the Murdochs.
…and there is a lot more that can be and should be done with this subject …. for another day and place perhaps
Luke,
Your ability to keep your blinkers on and totally miss the point is amazing.
Maybe you could consider this question.
If we consider the animal we are attempting to tame and explain….in this case large bodies of water that are interacting with other untamed animals …how much actual realistic or useful RELEVANCE does a modelled average trend really have as a legislative decision making tool?
The important questions are:
What do the models actually PROVE & what are the models attempting to JUSTIFY?
The follow up question is:
What are the measurable practical RESULTS of basing legislation on these modelled average trends?
I agree that the exercise is academically and statistically interesting…and that modelling different scenarios can be helpful in understanding the influence of different variables.
However
There is a great big qualifying BUT that goes with that agreement.
Contrary to your obvious belief system that all things environmental can be tamed, modelled, averaged and graphed as an average trend & therefore justify policy decisions….as a water manager…..and therefore very interested in the physical properties of water…including its ability to store/conduct/transfer heat….I can assure you that in my world, your precious ‘settled’ modelled averaged trends are virtually useless as a water management tool….including risk management.
In fact, legislative reliance on averaged trends has created negative and obstructive behaviour.
But the modelling itself is nonetheless academically and statistically interesting….I have never had a problem with that.
Luke, if you think any measurement of the average temperature of the world’s oceans is accurate….
0.09c is statistically meaningless and simply indicates that there is nothing unusual happening.
To base your belief system on these sorts of figures puts you firmly in the catastrophe camp.
You need to get back to the sensible way of thinking like Stevenson.
Deb, I was right about the Turing Test. Your reflex responses on problems with averages, trends, projectile models are all same old and would apply to all the papers you have never read . You are proving Lukes RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” And RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Well , it stopped working for you last year.
Bazza,
It was funny the first time you said it.
However…..as you have just said above…rule 7…which of course isn’t Luke’s rule at all….he merely copy/pasted it.
I’m not particularly interested in your sneering, philosophical comments or your personal comments about tactics or my literacy skills…. IMO…they provide nothing substantial or useful to this discussion.
For me at least….it’s not about political tactics….I’m one of those incredibly annoying people who as well as having a genuine interest (and training) in the ‘academics’ and even finding the philosophy, the academics, the scientific debates and the theories of some cerebral interest….I ultimately judge the success and/or failure of policy/legislation based on these theories/philosophies on the practical measureable RESULTS.
You seem to possess a great deal of philosophical/academic knowledge Bazza….or at the very least you like to present yourself that way…but sadly….you appear to have limited understanding how highly vulnerable we all are to the poor implementation of policy and an over reliance on ideological theory…..which in the case of this debate rests on proving and justifying that we can tame and manage this animal in an undefined future timeframe by using averaged projected trends.
As you have pointed out earlier….this work also has some serious time lag problems….that actually means that its use as a decision making tool is severely limited because, quite frankly, it lacks the necessary flexibilty.
The ability to graph and model the ever increasing bank of raw data is very useful to help EXPLAIN and UNDERSTAND the world around us and even how we have reached this moment in time.
Using it as a decision making, policy making tool is not proving to be successful.
and BTW…did you like this one?
http://xkcd.com/329/
I actually did laugh when I looked up Turing test….it was funny…but that’s all…..just funny.
Luke – you castigate Bob T for making comment without having published any peer reviewed papers.
It seems your arguement is one cannot comment unless one is published.
You seem to comment quite a lot.
Have you published any papers? Please provide some links.
In the meantime I suggest you desist from commenting until you have provided links to your piublished papers.
Simply apply the same rule to yourself that you wish to impose on Bob T.
Just sit down and write a paper – I am sure most readers of this blog would be very happy to provide constructive criticism.
Put up or shut up.
You are a hypocrite if you do otherwise.
If I read the realclimate ref correctly, it opens more questions for me. My understanding of their result is that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to a .008K increase in the temp of the ocean, 4W/m2 x 0.002K (W/m2)-1, and that this is being observed now. Shirley, I must be wrong, I already know I’m stupid.
luke quotes SoD to argue the sun cannot warm the ocean. Shaviv’s latest paper is interesting:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117711007411
Shaviv says:
“We also show that a non-thermal solar component is necessarily present, indicating that the total solar contribution to the 20th century global warming, of ΔTsolar = 0.27 ± 0.07 °C, is much larger than can be expected from variation in the total solar irradiance alone. However, we also find that the largest contribution to the 20th century warming comes from anthropogenic sources, with ΔTman = 0.42 ± 0.11 °C.”
Shaviv does not discuss a mechanism by which DLR/backradiation permeates more than skin deep into the ocean so his paper and its conclusions, which are still damning for AGW, will no doubt be met with much interest.
At SoD, who luke quotes with fervour, when it suits him, the formidable Willis Eschenbach puts things into perspective:
“Willis Eschenbach
scienceofdoom, a very well researched article. And Nick Stokes, your piece is interesting as well.
I approach this as someone who surfed and dived (both day and nigh) for a couple of decades in the deep tropical ocean.
Now, the human body is a marvelous instrument, capable of detecting temperature differences. So I am very familiar with the thermal structure of the upper ocean, but not as curves on a graph. I know its structure because I have spent a lot of time there.
Nick, you are right that there is a “hook” in the temperature curve. The surface is radiating and evaporating, so perforce it is cooler than the immediate substratum.
However, that “hook” is a slight drop from the higher temperature that is found just below the surface. And that temperature is the temperature that is affected by the DLR.
Yes, some of the energy in the immediate subsurface moves downwards. It does this by turbulence. However, that downwards motion through turbulence is opposed by the thermal stratification of the ocean (daytime) and also by the thermal circulation of the ocean (nighttime).
As a result, a larger percentage of the DLR energy that is absorbed just below the surface gets re-radiated or evaporated than is the case with solar energy which is absorbed at depth.
How much more? Aye, there’s the rub … As you know, the ocean is the opposite of the atmosphere. The atmosphere stratifies at night, and overturns vertically during the day.
The ocean, on the other hand, thermally stratifies during the day, and overturns at night. This is also the time when both radiation sources are active. The solar radiation heats the bulk, and the DLR heats the skin. Both contribute to the increased loss due to convection, conduction, and evaporation.
During the day, the DLR pushes the peak surface temperature way higher than it would be if it were just heated by the sun. It is quite perceptible when swimming in the tropical ocean on a warm day with no wind. Sometimes I’ve been swimming in very warm water, and when my arm goes down vertical the warm water stops at about my forearm. Lie still in that water, and you can feel how warm the very surface is driven by the combination of DLR and solar energy.
At night, the surface cools below the temperature of the underlying layers. This soon starts vertical thermal circulation, and we get an entirely different situation. Slow upwelling begins over large areas, with interspersed smaller areas of faster-descending columns of cooler water.
Of course there is no sun at night. All of the DLR which is entering the ocean is on a one way circulation path. It is absorbed immediately below the surface. It then moves upward (not downward) and radiates, conducts, and evaporates its energy upwards. Thus cooled, the water then sinks in the descending column.
So at night, one effect of the DLR is to slow the vertical circulation of the ocean.
Is there an overall conclusion? My only conclusion is that more of the DLR energy ends up quickly re-emitted upwards (whether by conduction, convection, or evaporation) than happens with the corresponding solar energy. Particularly in clear tropical waters, much of that energy enters the ocean at tens of metres of depth. A much smaller percentage of the solar energy is quickly re-emitted back upwards into the atmosphere or to space.”
Minister for Truth
Well knock me over with a feather, Monboit has written a reasoned article. I did read him for a while after he got upset over the first batch of climategate emails, thinking he might have changed attitudes but then he went all daft again, and I’ve hardly ever gone back.
I haven’t had time to read the comments but the article is excellent.
BTW, Calling all rationale people here:
I don’t know about elsewhere but in Melbourne tomorrow (Sunday) at 9:00 pm on ABC 24 there is a TV panel show led by Robyn Williams, (he who normally presents the so-called “Science Show” on ABC radio), that is innocently entitled Future Forum. There are repeats at other times. The topic tomorrow is about risks to coral reefs this century following the recent symposium in Cannes as discussed earlier by Jennifer here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/07/activist-scientists-crying-wolf-on-coral-bleaching-and-climate-change/#more-9729
Allegedly over 2,000 scientists have agreed with; Consensus Statement on Climate Change and Coral Reefs which can be found here: https://secure.jcu.edu.au/app/form/coralcoe/registration.cfm
However, here follows an extract from here: http://www.icrs2012.com/Consensus_Statement.htm
The drafting group comprised three guys in California. Notice that the emphasis is on climate change and that they ask for completed endorsements to some rather dodgy things, before the 5-day event started.
Comment from: Mack July 21st, 2012 at 8:39 am
I feel a little jipped. If that was what you were shooting for, you win.
Luke?
Bob Tisdale asked you a specific question:
Where’s the greenhouse gas-driven warming of the North Atlantic, Luke?
You reply with a link to 1 paper…that freely & openly admits in a number of places to using C02 ‘forcings’… eg page 15 & fig11
And then say:
Wonder what EOF1, EOF2 and EOF3 are?
What do you think they are Luke?
OMIGOD – Cohers has made a discursive thoughtful contribution.
sp – look I get to ask the questions. You don’t. So make a point – just don’t follow my wake.
Well duh-Debs – it might be that a very simple analysis of the available data (two sources) says there is a dominant centennial warming signal overlaid over secondly an IPO signal and then and AMO signal. So we have a long term upwards increase in SST overlaid perturbed by up and down quasi decadal oscillations. (and from forcings that look something like – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Climate_Change_Attribution.png and watch those aerosols lately)
Long term trend – with up and down internal oscillations. Not monotonic linear.
Now if you think the earth’s climate system generates all that trend by itself well you probably believe in Jack’s (or Bob’s) beanstalk.
Who’d have thought.
Bob Tisdale @ July 21st, @ 8:44 am
Great stuff Bob, but I feel it is more useful for the rational people here than addressing it to a serial pest.
That 1997/8 super El Nino was rather naughty what? It irritates me that when the IPCC trumpeted the Manna hockeystick in six places in their 2001 report, despite that they found time to enhance it in other ways, they could not find time to show the notably lower temperature to end 2000, rather than the more scary 1998 value.
Cohenite @ July 21st@ 1:02 pm
May I add to Willis Eschenbach’s discussion that because over the oceans (= ~71% of the surface) most of the down-welling IR is absorbed in the surface skin, (although some surviving solar IR may go down some good more millimetres), we are encroaching on the field of molecular energy transfers or quantum theory. These processes are so VERY fast that they make things like wave action, currents and other turbulences look stationary. When Willis conjectures in his conclusions:
In real terms the molecular energy loss transfers from IR absorption in the skin are overwhelmingly attributable to almost instantaneous evaporation* and radiation. Forget snail-pace conduction and convection. But yes, the solar energy that penetrates as far as 100 m in clear water will be subjected to rather slow dynamics such as the thermo-haline circulation, wave action, ENSO and whatnot, and it is a lot more complicated and unsolved.
*Evaporation is explained in quantum theory in that the higher energy molecules in the liquid escape readily to the air above, thus leaving a greater proportion of lower energy molecules behind, resulting in evaporative cooling.
Erh, I’d better stop there.
Gee you’re good Bob FJ – right in there mate – find out when the cutoff dates were.
James Mayeau, No James you misunderstood, I’m with you buddy.
Just a bit of music from down under 🙂 Spinning, Spinning ,Spinning, The Simple Image.
Thanks Mack, for the reply. And the song too I guess.
Luke – the point I made is that you are a hypocrite with double standards.
You think of yourself as “scientific”, but you are not.
You think you refute, you dont. You contradict – you seek automatic gainsay by taking a contrary position without presenting any evidence.
You are not “scientific”, you are not even good at “politik”, real or otherwise.
You simply evade answering simple questions in the hope that your stupidity will be lost in the volume of your utterances.
Your wake is nothing more than a brown stain of effluent – unfortunately this comes from your mouth. Why would I follow that you idiot?
Sadly you cant tell the difference. Its obvious you have difficulty differentiating your elbow from your anus. But expect others treat your drivle as reason.
Where are your published papers oh wise one?
Why not write a simple referenced paper and put it up on this site – come on Luke – show us what you can do all by yourself – show us something original – not just trite and childish comments on your perceived failings in others.
But you wont present anything original because you cant.
You are only (nearly) as good as the people you pretend to debate because their ideas are intersting – not yours. You are bereft of an original idea.
By the way – hahahahah – is becominga bit maniacal. The definition of madness is simply repeating the same thing over and over again.
You repeat and regurgitate nonsense at a prodigious rate – but rarely add value. Any value you add is an addendum to leranings of others. You dont learn. And laugh maniacally for no good reason.
It is evident to any observer you have lost the plot because the proposition you support is sp patently false that mental breakdown is the only logical outcome.
Give it away dear child – resume your medication and have a nice rest.
You think you know everything about everything. But the more you comment the more you reveal how bereft your are of logic and knowledge.
You are simply a nutjob with spiritual pretensions, a eco-warrior child you never grew up.
I should be more forgiving and accept your stupidity because you truly believe you are on a one man mission to save the planet.
But the sad facts are you are really just a nasty a piece of work who has nothing better to do other than search for irrelevant links to support your lack of true understanding.
You have never had an original thought or produced an original work.
You are like the eunoch that guard the door to the harem. You watch what the real men do in the harem – but try as you mighht you will be never able to to do it yourself. NEVER. And thats because you lack a couple of fundamentals.
Follow my wake – you poor deluded sod. Write a paper Luke – put up or shut up.
Luke – the eunech at the door of the harem. A sock puppet eunech to boot.
Luke: You’re still complaining about the fact that I haven’t bothered to publish any of my findings in a peer-reviewed publication, yet you linked at RealClimate blog post as proof that Downward Longwave Radiation impacts ocean skin temperature. And as I pointed out to you, the RealClimate post is not based on a peer-reviewed paper, just some field measurements from an author who admits lack of scientific control. I asked you right from the get go to link the peer-reviewed paper associated with that RealClimate post. Apparently, you didn’t find one. Hmmm. All the readers here can now see how your arguments contradict themselves. You complain that my findings aren’t peer reviewed but you have no qualms about linking field trip findings with no experimental control that haven’t been peer-reviewed. Some here might now even choose to call you a hypocrite, Luke, among all of the other things.
Thanks for linking Parker et al (2007) “Decadal to multidecadal variability and the climate
change background.” It indicates to all the readers here that you are incapable of grasping the importance of the graph I presented to you, the one that compared the observed Pacific Ocean sea surface temperature trends to those of the IPCC’s (model mean) simulations of it on a zonal-mean basis for the past 30 years. Here it is again:
http://i45.tinypic.com/huexxs.jpg
Apparently, you’re not aware that Parker et al (2007) used climate models to study ENSO. Everyone here knows that climate models can’t simulate ENSO, Luke—maybe everyone except you. Climate models never have been able to simulate ENSO, and since they’ve been trying for more than 15 years and making little headway, it’s unlikely they ever will. There are dozens and dozens of papers that discuss the problems with how climate models attempt to portray ENSO. Models can’t even portray the mean state and the annual cycle of the tropical Pacific correctly, and that’s before they start adding El Niño and La Niña events. A good overview of all of the model problems is provided in Guilyardi et al (2007) “UNDERSTANDING EL NIÑO IN OCEAN–ATMOSPHERE GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS: Progress and Challenges”.
http://geoearth.uncc.edu/people/meastin/class/convective/Guilyardi-etal-2009.pdf
It is a technical paper about ENSO, and since you obviously have no interest in learning about ENSO, the importance of most of it will be beyond you. However, there is a sentence that comes across plain as day. Guilyardi et al (2007) write: “Because ENSO is the dominant mode of climate variability at interannual time scales, the lack of consistency in the model predictions of the response of ENSO to global warming currently limits our confidence in using these predictions to address adaptive societal concerns, such as regional impacts or extremes (Joseph and Nigam 2006; Power et al. 2006).”
One final comment for you, Luke: I’ll present ENSO in a way that even you can understand—if you have any desire to do so. The following two paragraphs are from my upcoming book about ENSO.
El Niño and La Niña events are phenomena Mother Nature has devised to vary the rate at which naturally stored thermal energy (in the form of warm water) is released by, and renewed in, the tropical Pacific Ocean.
The strength of ENSO phases, along with how often they happen and how long they persist, determine how much heat is released by the tropical Pacific into the atmosphere and how much warm water is transported by ocean currents from the tropics to the poles. During a multidecadal period when El Niño events dominate (a period when El Niño events are stronger, when they occur more often and when they last longer than La Niña events), more heat than normal is released from the tropical Pacific and more warm water than normal is transported by ocean currents toward the poles—with that warm water releasing heat to the atmosphere along the way. As a result, global sea surface and land surface temperatures warm during multidecadal periods when El Niño events dominate. Similarly, global temperatures cool during multidecadal periods when La Niña events are stronger, last longer and occur more often than El Niño events.
Adios.