(See the Hammer link below, for more information on this graphic).
If there is one topic that trumps all others in climate science, it’s ocean heat.
If there is a planetary imbalance in energy, and Earth is acquiring more heat than it’s losing, we ought to be able to find that heat. Energy can not be created nor destroyed. It has to be somewhere.
On this Water-Planet, virtually every scientist agrees that the vast bulk of the extra energy ought be stored in the water. The oceans cover 70% of the surface, and are 4km deep; water has a high heat capacity (meaning it can store a lot of energy), and, because water flows quickly (unlike rock), turbulence and mixing can take that heat energy away from the surface.
Every skeptic (and taxpayer) ought to know that since 2003 (when we started measuring oceans properly) the oceans have been cooling: Douglass and Knox 2010.
Five years of planetary heating amounts to a massive amount of energy. That’s 2,000 days of the sun bearing down on an atmosphere with growing levels of CO2. According to the IPCC favored models, the extra heat stored should be 0.7 x 1022 Joules per year (or 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules per annum or 7,000 quintillion joules).
The oceans cause a lot of “noise” in our climate — the water is 4km deep and mostly close to freezing, even in the depths under the tropics. When the ocean is “stirred” cold water wells up and sucks the heat out of the atmosphere giving us a La Nina and a cooler year. When the ocean is calm, the massive stores of “cold” stay sequestered below, the surface water warms faster, and satellite record an El Nino warm spike. Figuring out the effects of CO2 with surface thermometers is difficult because of this noise and variability. But the vast oceans are the giant storage depots for heat content year after year.
Positions of the floats that have delivered data within the last 30 days (AIC, updated daily)
The Argo buoy network uses 3,000 floating thermometers that spread through the worlds oceans and dive 2,000 m deep. They record the temperatures and radio them back when they surface every couple of weeks. It is the gold standard in measuring ocean temperatures. Argo became operational in mid-2003; before then we relied on erratic and highly uncertain measurements from boats. (See The UCSD Argo website.)
Figure 1. Ocean heat content from Argo (left scale: blue, original data; red, filtered) and ocean surface temperatures (right scale, green). Conversion of the OHC slope to W/m2 is made by multiplying by 0.62, yielding –0.161 W/m2. Figure 4 From Knox & Douglass page 1. OHC (Ocean Heat Content) From Douglass and Knox, 2010.
Critics (like Skeptical Science) will say it’s wrong to think this matters “you need to consider all the evidence”, including papers that show warming, measurements from the last 50 years through other techniques, and measurements from the deep ocean down to 2,000m. Superficially it sounds reasonable, except that none of that extra data adds better or more accurate information, or shows the Argo results are wrong and should be ignored. The ARGO system started in 2003. How could extra energy captured since 2003 have reached 2km underwater without heating the top 700m first? The oceans take about 1,000 years to fully churn. The time scales don’t make sense, and if the water 2,000m down is warming, it’s more likely that subterranean heat is rising up from the planet-sized-ball of molten lava below, rather than leap frogging down from atmospheric imbalances in a trace gas.
Lyman 2010 uses XBT data going back to 1990 and finds continuous warming. But XBT’s are much less reliable, and even he still finds things have flattened since 2003. This paper does not add to our Argo knowledge.
Purkey & Johnson 2010 look at depths down to 4,000m for the 1990s and 2000s (how is that relevant to CO2 induced warming in the last 10 years?) It’s not like recent coal emissions could have warmed the abyssal depths.
Who are the cherry pickers?
Skeptics will discuss any time frame, but fans of man-made global warming prefer to ignore trends in the last ten years or trends longer than 130 years. It all gets a bit complicated.
The oceans have warmed for the last 200 years, but that’s awkward, the timing doesn’t match with our CO2 emissions which rocketed from 1945 and can’t have caused the oceanic shift that started around 1800. The longer data doesn’t explain why we can’t find the warming for the last five years.
The ARGO data is simply so reliable, so comprehensive, and so detailed, and the number of absent joules so enormous, that we won’t find the missing heat that was supposedly stored in 2005 by looking at data from 1975. Averaging heat energy over longer periods with poorer quality or irrelevant data only muddies up what occurred from 2003 – 2009 (Rorschach test anyone?).
It’s just “noise”
Short periods of cooling could be due to natural forces overriding a warming effect, but what force is at work? The models didn’t predict the cooling, and can’t explain it. Therefore the models are missing a major factor (or ten). The “noise” excuse won’t wash with the oceans. If the energy is not in the oceans, where could it be? It’s not as though the heat can sneak underground, boil off a lake, or hide in a cloud for five years.
Where is that mass of missing heat from 2003 – 2008? It is either in the top layer of the oceans, or it’s been flung out to space. We won’t find it by looking back in time, or searching the bottom of the ocean. Anyone who pretends we will is playing a shell game. Watch the pea.
The bottom line:
The models say the Earth system ought to accrue energy at the rate of 3W/m2. Instead the best estimate we have of recent energy balance suggests we’ve been losing energy at a rate of about 0.1 W/m2 (Knox and Douglass 2010). The models don’t match the observations.
There is no getting around it. The models are wrong. The energy balance is so central that none of their other predictions can be relied on.
Ocean Heat Content compared to models
——————————————
Further Information:
Knox and Douglass — Abstract:
A recently published estimate of Earth’s global warming trend is 0.63 ± 0.28 W/m2, as calculated from ocean heat content anomaly data spanning 1993–2008. This value is not representative of the recent (2003–2008) warming/cooling rate because of a “flattening” that occurred around 2001–2002. Using only 2003–2008 data from Argo floats, we find by four different algorithms that the recent trend ranges from –0.010 to –0.160 W/m2 with a typical error bar of ±0.2 W/m2. These results fail to support the existence of a frequently-cited large positive computed radiative imbalance.
The odd case of the missing Argo data
Strangely with modern telecommunications, the latest ARGO buoy data is sometimes unavailable for months (see the bottom of this post). The Argo results travel at the speed of light back to base, yet for month after month skeptics asked for data while the publicly funded ARGO team did not upgrade the ARGO information. If the results had been a rapidly warming ocean, updates would have been issued every week (and with press releases). But when researcher Pielke asked for data it was flatly refused it in Sept 2010. Public outcry and blog pressure meant that eventually an update was released circa March 2011.
Useful links:
- The ARGO Data
- The deep oceans drive the atmosphere (Guest post by William Kininmonth)
- New claims that Ocean Heat Content are still rising are discussed in detail by Bob Tisdale. Despite the paucity of measurements below 1000m, the NCDC decided to add the deeper ARGO series to their 1950 -2010 graph on ocean heat. This creates a sudden uptick at the end of the graph. Scientifically, plastering a new data set onto a very thin weak one is dubious. We really can’t say much at all about the trend in ocean temperatures at that depth since 1950 because we just don’t have the data.
- See the complexity of mobile ocean temperatures in the beautiful animations on Bob Tisdale’s site.
- Douglass answers Trenberths criticisms.
- Michael Hammer did calculations on the Missing Heat and an update on those numbers too.
References
Knox, R.S. and Douglass D. H., (2010): Recent energy balance of Earth, International Journal of Geosciences, 2010, vol. 1, no. 3 [PDF]
Loehle, C., (2009): “Cooling of the global ocean since 2003,” Energy and Environment, Vol. 20, 101–104.
Douglass, D.H. and Knox, S.R. (2009): “Ocean heat content and Earth’s radiation imbalance,” Physics Letters A, Vol. 373, 3296–3300.
R. Pielke Sr (2008): “A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system,” Physics Today Vol. 61, no. 11, pp. 54-55
von Schuckmann, K., Gaillard, F., and Le Traon P.-Y. (2009): “Global hydrographic variability patterns during 2003-2008,” Journal of Geophysical Research C, Vol. 114, C09007.
——
UPDATE:* Douglass and Keen should have been Douglass and Knox. Fixed. Thanks Mark and Mattb 🙂
This is a very relevant topic. A 2008 NPR story on the Argo system and the “missing heat” was a turning point in my understanding of the global warming / climate change issue. Here is the link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025
My observation is that most people believe in dangerous man-made global warming because they take it as a simple fact that the planet is warming up rapidly. They sincerely, honestly believe this. And it is reinforced frequently by sources they take as authoritative. I know this to be true because I believed it. Fortunately, this NPR story slipped through. Unfortunately it’s a rare exception in the dominant media in the US, and obviously in Australia too.
Ken Smith
30
How do these publicly-funded organisations keep getting away with this disgraceful behaviour?
It ‘s clear that they want time to analyse the data in private, to give them time to ‘spin’ a story for any data that don’t fit the pre-determined agenda.
30
And to “adjust” the data – if they can get away with it!
20
The term that you’re looking for is “homogenised”. Like putting a potato in a blender so that they can be extruded to the required shape.
You have to understand the reticence to release data that don’t show what’s expected. There could be calibration issues. Of course they should be checking just as rigorously when the data show what’s expected.
20
Never before, in the history of mankind, have so many been duped by so few.
Take it as a given that the next “discovery” will be that the rocks are indeed absorbing all that extra heat and transport it down to the magma. This in turn is causing an imbalance in the heat content of the tectonic plates. As we all know when something is warmer it moves faster so this will cause the plates to move faster, which in turn is causing more earth quakes. The increased temperature of the magma will cause more pressure build up inside our ball of rock and this has to be released. It will do this through increased volcanic activity.
All looks pretty obvious, we have not had a real major eruption for some time, so all we need is a good one and the theory is proven. After all, there is no need to explain major eruptions in the past when it was cooling, as these were natural, so it will be proof of “the excessive warming rock and heat transfer theory”.
20
Not allowed to do that – it is against the law.
10
Yep, the Second Law.
But wait, I’ve found a loop hole! As CO2 boosts plant growth the land will be covered with more dead leaf litter and the bigger plankton blooms in the ocean will eventually cover the sea floor with a thicker blanket (you can see where I’m going) of insulating goo, therefore the internal heat of the earth’s core will escape more slowly and the upper mantle will heat to a higher equilibrium temperature!
Give ALL my money to Al Gore – he’s got to FIGHT SEISMIC CHANGE and STOP GLOBAL SHAKING!
It’s not really about thermodynamics. Once you put any number greater than zero in the same category as infinity, credulity and precaution will reign supreme over skepticism and risk management.
20
Don’t forget how the increased green biomass provides more food for Canadian gees, which in turn shed more of their heat trapping down. Yes, Canadian gees are causing Global Warming, we need a goose tax! (No bum intended).
11
Not a great deal of comfort for those of us who live on an earthquake fault and work in a volcanic crater.
20
Jake, that’s so scary ! The Earth could even explode with all that excess heat, so the need for a carbon tax is obvious. There’s so much else that a carbon tax could fix too. //sarc
40
Question, somewhat unrelated topic, but in reference to the ‘Outer space’ portion:
The ozone hole. I seem to recall it was discovered in the 50s…? Also, it apparently seems to vary quite a bit in extent?
And recently, I seem to recall that it has been appearing in conjunction with the harsh winters we have been seeing, over the pole that has been in winter at the time.
So: is there the slightest possibility that the ozone hole is a mechanism for bleeding off ‘excess’ heat?
Bad wording to the question, I know, but writing on the fly here…
10
The possibility is there, that it is another of the many natural processes that occur on the planet as “regulators” of the “climate” is entirely feasible. Contrary to what some would try and convince us we do not understand the atmospheric processes, how many of them there are, or how they all interact to control what we call “climate.”
It is a very complex system that some attempt to simplify to prop up predetermined conclusions about it. The reality is they simply don’t know.
However there does appear to be a fair amount of evidence supporting the claims that CFC’s had absolutely nothing to do with the ozone hole and the changes that take place with it are (surprise) a natural occurrence.
However using the claim that CFC’s caused it (or made it larger) allowed for a great deal of policy and legislation of everything from what refrigerants could be used (and who would therefore profit from them by holding the patents) to EPA regulations and the resultant funding that agency would receive due to this “threat.”
As time passes it appears more and more like another case of “we don’t understand it well enough to know if it is broken, but we can make it look like we broke it so we can then propose a “fix” that benefits us (though not necessarily the populace).”
20
I don’t think anyone knows a useful thing about the ozone hole aside from where it is and how it varies in size. Anyone got a guess as to what causes it?
And yes, it was first noted in the 1950s. I’ve argued before that the meaning of it is tied heavily to how long it’s been there. And on that point we’re entirely ignorant. One more time someone has built a house of cards out of thin air and sold it to policy makers who don’t have the brains to be skeptical and ask some questions before they jump.
10
Roy,
I went to a debate, some years ago (when they were banning CFC’s) at which one of the speakers (sorry, memory leak regarding the name) made an argument for the ozone hole being caused by the Earth’s rotation – something to do with the relative masses of atmospheric gases. His line of argument was not well received by the audience.
20
Just my two cents (pick Aus or US cents, as you will):
The monumental work by Leroux (now deceased, sadly) indicated a strong possibility that the Antarctic ozone depletion was tied directly to the continuous eruption of Mr. Erubus (sp?).
The hypothesis that the chlorine from man-made or natural sources can affect ozone is basically sound. What always bothered me about the suggestion that man-made chemicals were causing an Antarctic ozone hole is this: most of the industrialized world, that used the man-made chemicals, was in the Northern hemisphere, while the ‘ozone hole’ was located over the farthest place in the world, from the Northern hemisphere. I had a big problem with all those chemicals moving from the Northern hemisphere to the South geographic pole, without doing any destruction in between 40 degrees N and 90 degrees S.
Dr. Leroux makes a convicing case that Mt. Erubus is the primary cause of the persisent “hole”.
But as will be noted by certain posters to this website, I am just the poster-boy for Dunning-Kruger.
Best regards to all, and hope this helps,
Mark H.
20
I read (many years ago), the estimated volume of chlorine that Erebus “burped”, it was truly awsome number(can’t remember the figure). Erebus is an obvious culprit when you consider is size/scale. Tis very big.
10
The ozone “hole” was a test run for gl
10
Rats. It posted mid-sentence somehow. What I was trying to say was;
The ozone “hole” was a test run for global carbon trading under the dubious pretext of global warming. It was such a success that we have endured years of alarmism and copped a Carbon Tax for good measure.
If global cooling occurred after global carbon trading had been implemented, they would be claiming credit for it, mark my words. We would then be subject to a third wave of green governance much much worse than carbon trading and windmills.
10
The “hole” is actually a weakening in the concentration of ozone to about one third the global average; it is not a total absence of ozone.
British and French scientists did indeed measure ozone levels in the mid fifties but because of their limited areal coverage could not determine the extent of the very low readings they obtained. What they did determine was the ozone levels were considerably lower compared to average values measured elsewhere in the world.
It wasn’t until satellite measurements of ozone began in the ’80s that the “discovery” of a “hole” was announced. Then the rush was on to find some explanation for this phenomenon. That’s when the hypothesis that CFCs were to blame was based on laboratory studies. Nobody actually found CFCs in the stratosphere over the poles. It would be difficult for these much heavier than air gases to be carried to such great heights before breaking down.
The Montreal Protocol was formed to eliminate the use of CFCs, but the annual waxing and waning of the “holes” continued despite repeated promises from scientists that the “holes” would eventually disappear.
A new study came out that suggests some of the assumptions used in the theory that CFCs were creating the “holes” were incorrect.
http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryheat/2011/09/26/ozone-theory-has-holes/
More likely the “holes” are a recurrent phenomenon related to unique chemical and meteorological forces found at the poles and have likely been forming for millions of years. Given that the scientists working for the Montreal Protocol agency would be unwilling to see their funding cut off if it ever were proven that the “holes” are entirely natural, we should expect more “studies” to “prove” that CFCs and other man-made chemicals are the cause just like we have seen with the man-made global warming nonsense.
Perhaps, after a few more decades of seeing these “holes” appear and disappear each year, governments will finally realize they’ve been scammed by yet another U.N.-sponsored agency. Unfortunately, the money wasted pursuing the bankrupt theory of man-made ozone “holes” will not be recovered but will stand as a monument to the gullibility of science-challenged politicians when presented with threadbare scientific theories of climate change doom.
10
Pat, you are no doubt closer to the truth than all the scientists looking to make a name for themselves.
The trouble is that once something is cast into law it stays there forever. What legislator wants to admit to a mistake?
Here I am with an air conditioning system full of R22 — now, I’m told, quite illegal to even manufacture anymore. So if I ever need refrigerant I’ll need to find someone who still has some preexisting R22 or replace my system. The real problem with ill considered policy is that the bad consequences are always pushed down to the little guy.
10
Polar ozone creation decreases when the sun sets at the respective pole. Winter polar atmosphere circulation often further reduces ozone transport from other parts of the globe. By spring, the loss can be large, but never a hole. When the sun returns, so does the ozone.
10
just cut and pasted this from a comment on another website. I have not read this anywhere else, is this correct.
Research, partly funded by NOAA, “reveals that underwater volcanism, is one of the strongest and least understood forces on earth, producing a vast heating of the seas equal to that of 3,000 big nuclear reactors.”
20
Ian Plimer in his book “Heaven and Earth” referred to under sea volcanoes as being producers of large amounts of CO2 and was howled down by the in crowd. The fact that we do know is that we know very little. As for the missing heat a non scientist would look at that huge blue thing above us and ask why it couldn’t be going up there. After all there is very little to stop it just drifting off to space as it does from the Moon and Mars and Venus and from our heater. Simple I know but most good answers are.
10
You might be interested in Dr. Jinan Cao’s paper, here:
http://www.tech-know.eu/uploads/JCao_N2O2GreenGases_Blog.pdf
In a nutshell, the only gases able to radiate to space are the GHGs. Therefor increasing them produces cooling of the atmosphere. In effect, they “dump” thermal energy picked up by collision from the non-radiating gases.
10
The ozone hole, there is an interesting one. Guess who were funding a lot of the research in that? Companies whose patents for CFC 11 and 12 were just about to run out and were keen for the world to accept more expensive alternatives in the form of HCFC’s. That was financially better then letting cheaper product come in from Asia.
And if you fund research to prove a theory so you make further financial gain, how would you structure the research? Why is chocolate always beneficial when the study is funded by one of the manufacturers but when that funding link is not there those same benefits appear hard to verify?
There may be a link, after all you can prove anything in a lab, and no one (that should read: not many of us) knows if there was a “hole” before the discovery was made in the 50’s (but we can guess fairly accurately). And the proof of that link is starting to look shaky now.
Was America there before Columbus “discovered” it? (not a good analogy, but you get the point). It is “almost certain” that if the sea level would have been higher in those days that he would have had to sail longer to get there.
10
Famously, in a 2008 interview for National Public Radio, Kevin Trenberth said the missing heat could have been radiated back out to space. A rare example of T-Man being candid.
About a coupla years ago, Pielke Pere, Josh Willis, and Kevin Trenberth participated in an email exchange still available at Le Pere’s in which Roger and Josh patiently tried to explain to Kevin that there was no evidence of deeper transport of his ‘missing heat’. It was like trying to get the attention of a mule by hitting it over the head with a toothpick.
Josh demonstrated integrity in that exchange. I have little doubt that he is one of the most conflicted men on earth today.
==============
10
” According to the IPCC favored models, the extra heat stored should be 0.7 x 1022 Joules per year (or 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules per annum or 7,000 quintillion joules).”
I think that’s sextillion.
10
Great summary of this issue. I follow (and trust) Pielke Sr. and this is a theme to which he constantly returns. Not only the conversation between Trenberth, Willis and Pielke as Kim mentioned, but in many conversations over the years he tries to drive home two points: a) Ocean heat content (in Joules) is the best metric to track global warming and b) The ARGO network is robust enough and heat movement in the oceans is slow enough that we must surely see excess heat passing through the upper oceans. This is clearly a central issue; one which may be “tragic” depending on your perspective. Thanks for the well-written summary.
10
With all this Climategate stuff going on I thought it would be nice to take a break from the “Greatest Whoppers” in climate science history and look at one egregious case from the “Greatest Whoopsies” in climate science history ( an elleventy zillion gig 2 hour download file in its own right).
The abstract from Hansen et al 2005 states:
Our climate model, driven mainly by increasing human-made greenhouse
gases and aerosols, among other forcings, calculates that Earth is now absorbing
0.85 T 0.15 watts per square meter more energy from the Sun than it
is emitting to space. This imbalance is confirmed by precise measurements of
increasing ocean heat content over the past 10 years. Implications include (i) the
expectation of additional global warming of about 0.6-C without further change
of atmospheric composition; (ii) the confirmation of the climate system’s lag
in responding to forcings, implying the need for anticipatory actions to avoid
any specified level of climate change; and (iii) the likelihood of acceleration of
ice sheet disintegration and sea level rise.
Whoopsies. “Missed it by that much”. The 10 year cherry-picked 1993-2003 period was before the implementation of the Argo system. To make matters worse, the press release issued with the paper quoted Hansen as saying “This energy imbalance is the ‘smoking gun’ that we have been looking for” according to Jim Hansen . Whoopsies. Apparently the press release was actually supposed to say “Jim Hansen’s energy imbalance is the result of smoking something funny”.
10
Generally smoking guns do not need to be searched out. The reason they are smoking guns is that they are found at the scene of the murder still smoking from having inflicted the mortal wound and so obvious that even the most incompetent detective will not be able to mistake the murder weapon.
When people have to search and cherry pick and gyrate the data to produce the smoking gun they are really crating a fiction script for a murder mystery.
10
Found the problem, “Our climate model, driven mainly by increasing human-made greenhouse gases and aerosols … “
It is just a model and a very bad one at that … what do the real life observations and measurements indicate? Bob Tisdale advises at http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/the-ipcc-says-the-video-part-1/ or how about Fu et al 2001 http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/12/chinese-research-documents-the-major-failings-of-ipcc-climate-model-physics-models-are-wrong.html
10
If only Reporters could actually read. They might actually read this post and actually learn something. They might, as a result actually start becoming journalists…
It’s such a shame the MSM reports only know how to copy and paste and can’t read for themselves….
10
In which case they would have to find another employer as the current employers of “journalists” apparently to not want objective, analytical writers but prefer politically correct activist editorial writers.
Personal bias I suppose but I lump journalists in with lawyers in that the majority of them are worthless and the few that “do it right” we rarely hear about as they are buried by the noise of the rest.
I avoid MSM, do not watch broadcast news or get my news from the papers as anything happening can be found online somewhere and generally a lot of what is happening the prior sources ignore.
As a general guideline, if it pisses of the left and the MSM is attacking it then somewhere someone is reporting on (or writing about) it and one can then hunt that source down and proceed from there.
Again, just one person’s opinion, but unlike the modern “journalist” I don’t claim that everyone should have that opinion just that it works for me, your mileage may vary.
10
I agree robert – the lamestream has continued to become more and more irrelevant.
I don’t even have a inclination to watch the evening news anymore.
Like yourself, I have become my own editor. I am finding there is much more bullshit being copy and pasted by lazy arse reporters in the mainstream than the average search engine results link to.
Now that is saying something.
10
MadJak; Is this a ‘Contradiction’ or is it an ‘Oxymoron’? ‘Absurdity’, perhaps?
10
During the Cold War (remember that?) there was an “I say” joke:
Person 1: I say, I say, I say. Why do KGB Officers go around in threes?
Person 2: I don’t know. Why do KGB Officers go around in threes?
Person 1: Well, one can read, and one can write, and the third one is there to keep an eye on the intellectuals.
10
[…] for some of you interested in the science of global warming, here is another link from Coyote. As he puts it, it is the “dinosaur bone to the creationists” data. A […]
10
Again this article illustrates the need to pull back from analysis of particular sets of data and look at the big picture as it relates to the claims that we are causing Out Of Control Warming via Man Made CO2 production.
The failure of the IPCC machine is especially evident in the use of “models” to justify claims, so it might be worthwhile to just look at modeling and science.
Modeling is more correctly a branch of Engineering and there are some basic rules that have been flouted by CAGW _ CO2 modellers.
Firstly there has to be a problem analysis which identifies relevant factors and the physical, chemical and thermodynamic behaviors of those factors within the system.
Any claim that this has been done in the CO2 warming problem is PREPOSTEROUS.
There are perhaps a thousand PhD topics there waiting to be taken up by researchers.
We could start with work on understanding heat transfer between the main interfaces; eg Core to surface / surface to ocean depths/ ocean depths to ocean surface / ocean surface to atmosphere and so on, not having yet reached the depth of space at just slightly above absolute zero.
To claim that the entire system of atmospheric temperature moderation has been described by
the fluctuations of atmospheric CO2 content while excluding the other obvious factors such as atmospheric water vapour content, solar flux and orbital mechanics is just nonsense.
The whole point of modelling when done correctly is that it links accurately measured input of the main factors and accurately measure target output. Where you have major input factors that are not considered and poor and uncertain measurement of all factors then all you have is a joke or more seriously Public Fraud based on science.
You do not have science.
10
The question “where did the heat go” could be rephrased as “why are we looking for “lost” heat before we have gone to the trouble to identify each and every heat source and sink in the system?
There is a well known relationship between heat and work.
Energy can either appear as heat in the form of increased temperature or work done in some mechanical system.
A simple thought experiment to give a rough guide to the assessment of energy transformation in the atmosphere involves clouds, you know those fluffy light white coloured things in the sky.
Go outside on a cloudy day and stick you thumb up in the air at arms length.
The cloud covered by the area of your thumbnail and extending back about 50 meters from the surface of the cloud is our target.
You might be surprised to learn that the mass or weight of the “cloud” sample we have detailed is more than we imagined.
It is in fact about 1 or 2 tons (or tonnes, we aren’t being that picky).
You can do your own rough estimation of the water mass in all the visible clouds.
Ponder on where the energy came from to do the amount of work needed to lift many hundreds of tonnes of water from the Earth or Ocean surface a distance of a kilometre or so straight up.
The question we have to ask is this: Did the Trenberths et al. factor these energy transformations into their assessments?
I think we know the answer.
10
The Earths thermal balance and its description has been used as a tool by Global Warming / Climate Change “scientists” to great effect.
The public display of the “thermal balance” has a number of features which it might be useful to list.
1. The very presence of such a balance gives the impression to all and sundry that the Goreists have covered every possibly relevant aspect of MMGW or CAGW.
2. The accuracy of the balance is not crucial to the Warmers because it is such a complex system that they can bamboozle everybody and appeal to “authority” of their PhDs. This aspect cannot be overemphasised.
3. To the expert eye it is an obvious sham for a number of technical reasons and the following list is not exhaustive, just indicative.
a. Anyone with any expertise in thermodynamics and modeling of complex systems can see at a glance that this System is so complex that any claim to have an accurate thermal balance done is PREPOSTEROUS.
They have not balanced heat content and heat flux in oceans, Earth surfaces (rock, dirt, oceans, atm etc).
b. There are sub elements of the Earths energy system that have time lags varying from minutes (cloud shift) 24 hours (sun), 30 days (moons gravitation), years and tens of years and thousands of years (precession and other aspects of orbital mechanics).
c. The nutty thing is that frequently there is shown a perfect balance. Heat in minus heat out = Zero, this is rubbish – there are too many complex factors.
d. There is stored energy in plant and animal life.
e. There is a complex chemical system with it’s own thermodynamic flux which itself cannot be completely known .
f. The isolation of CO2 as the only relevant focus of analysis and radiation as the only relevant heat transfer mechanism deliberately eliminates many crucial factors.
So, despite all of this readily observable complexity we are told that the Earths thermal balance can be sent over the top by a quantitatively insignificant input: Mans Combustion of a puny amount of fossil fuel.
The Global Warming by Man Made Co2 concept has always just been a SHOW with lots of hoopla.
It has never been any kind of Science.
Getting back away from the nitty gritty allows us to see the full picture and tells a lot.
Frequently we are arguing about trivia which can be shown to be irrelevant when the full scope of a problem is detailed.
Basically, the ground work has not been done on the problem of Man Made Global Warming
10
Well, to be fair, it didn’t go up there as water droplets, but as a gas, part of the atmosphere. Condensation (incidentally dumping huge amounts of heat from the cloud tops into space) made the droplets and hence the visible clouds. But all that convection and movement of gases is indeed work. There are functions, AFAIK, in the GCMs estimating such circulation work done, but whether they’re accurate within an order of magnitude I have no idea.
10
And aren’t there energy considerations with gases????
Unbelievable.
And no, they aren’t accurate.
The idea that someone has modeled the entire atmosphere is ludicrous.
10
Read much? If you reached the 3rd sentence, you’d have seen “But all that convection and movement of gases is indeed work.”
Doh.
10
Hi Brian
Looking back at your post it appears that I have read both comments of yours: “that in line 1: to be fair” and the later comment about movement of gases being work. These statements seemed to contradict each other so I replied to your first line.
Perhaps your comment that Models include a factor for the energy involved set me off.
It illustrated the point about models: not correctly done and actually not models because they do not have a measurable real life factor that can be measured and compared to the “model”.
KK
10
Nice graph and all but if it is really “missing” don’t you think the ARGO would have MISSED it? You skeptics need to brush up on the science here……
Sarc
11
The latest place the missing heat is hiding is in the Southern Ocean according to our very own CSIRO. This being the CSIRO which has been found seemingly engaged in unethical behaviour in the Climategate II emails.
I ask Dr Rintoul, if the Southern Ocean is warming so much, why is Antarctic sea ice not affected?
10
Don’t ask them that. They are willing to lie about ocean temperatures (and everything else), so why not about Antarctic sea ice?
10
As somebody said on WUWT: “You can lie about the science, but you can’t hide the ice and snow.”
10
What about all the corrections that were made to ARGO by Josh Willis?
Correcting Ocean Cooling
Wikipedia says:
Josh Willis, in an article published on the NASA Earth Observatory web site states that once Argo thermometer measurement errors were removed, the world’s oceans have been absorbing additional energy and have been warming.
10
Read the useful link above (Jan 10, 2011):
“Douglas answers Trenberth’s criticisms”
In particular this from Douglas: –
10
Excellent post. Trenberth’s other reply was that he would be coming out soon which would respond to this “rubbish papaer”.
Where is that paper Kevin?????
What an a-hole.
10
Steve:
That’s a fascinating article — Willis openly admits to fudging the data to get the answer he knew was “right” (and his colleagues insisted upon).
He doesn’t use the word “fudge”, of course, but that’s what he does by selecting ARGOS floats to discard based solely on their temperatures — if they’re too cold, he rejects them. How someone with a PhD could be so ignorant of proper data analysis is amazing — this kind of data “handling” (selecting the data that gives the answer you want) would have earned a failing grade on an undergraduate physics lab at the small school I went to.
But, that was in the 1960’s when teaching how to do science was still more important than getting the politically correct answer. Willis’ ignorance (if that is what it is) is probably typical of today’s climate science graduates.
10
[…] JO NOVA BLOG The Travesty of the Missing Heat — deep ocean or outer space? Joanne Nova December 2nd, 2011 http://joannenova.com.au/2011/12/the-travesty-of-the-missing-heat-deep-ocean-or-outer-space/ […]
10
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=1487&linkbox=true&position=5
“The Hot Water Bottle Effect”
from 2008 describes the dominance of the oceans in controlling tropospheric temperatures
and
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6645
“How The Sun Could Control Earth’s Temperature”
describes how solar variability alters the amount of energy allowed through the clouds to enter the oceans.
10
Strange, I’ve tried posting twice with a couple of links but no sign of them. Have they gone to a junk folder ?
—-
Sorry Yes, Stephen, it went to the spam folder. I fished it out.
Try emailing support AT joannenova.com.au for a faster response. The excellent mods can help. 🙂 –Jo
10
[…] on ocean heat content that would also be very inconvenient for these same public servants…The Travesty of the Missing Heat — deep ocean or outer space? GA_googleAddAttr("AdOpt", "1"); GA_googleAddAttr("Origin", "other"); […]
10
Another terrific article Jo. I love the way you can write on a complex matter so we can pick up the salient points EASILY. We need to be sending this to Mainstream Media and to politicians. Well Done!
By now you should be thinking about finalising your Christmas gift list.If you can afford it I hope you encourage Jo Nova to continue this great work by making a deposit in her Tip Jar.
10
Wikipedia is increasingly unreliable due to rewriting of content by the socialists. And they have the tenacity to ask for donations.
10
For trivial history it is passable. For anything in which one desires to be taken seriously Wikipedia is not to be relied upon.
There is not a single instructor (Professor or otherwise) at any of the universities around here that will accept Wikipedia as a source in any coursework.
Some will mark the student down for using it, others will flat out fail the assignment if Wikipedia was used.
The reasons should be obvious to anyone who has had to do any type of research paper, thesis, or other university level paper.
If people want to quote Wikipedia to try and support their position or establish their knowledge on a particular topic outside of the classroom by all means let them, it makes it that much easier to destroy their argument.
10
Robert;
Wikipedia is still useful in those fields where the Socialists in control have not (yet) figured out that the information can be used against them. Sooner or later the hard core may figure out that Socialism’s ultimate goal is incompatible with freedom of any kind — personal freedom, economic freedom, or freedom of information. If that happens, then Wikipedia will become just as “reliable” as Pravda was during the Cold War.
(Note to Crakar24 and others who believe in “socialism lite” as, for instance, practiced in Scandinavia: I’m not including you in the catagory of “hard core Socialist”. Everyone is tempted to some degree by the utopian promises of Socialism. The history of 100,000,000 deaths in the 20th Century is enough for some to reject it completely — others believe that we can trade a little freedom and a little productivity for greater social justice. I believe that in countries with homogeneous populations with a strong cultural tradition of freedom, that may work for a while, but you’re still flirting with the devil.)
10
Well, they are tenacious, but the word you were reaching for was “temerity”. Honest.
10
Thank you Jo, for a very informative article. Your methods are enabling this old brain to enjoy the learning process, in this critical subject. Whenever I log in to this site and read the comments, I log off with growing hope instead of despair, so thank you one and all.
10
100% in agreeance Bruce. As there are so many facts and figures to comb through in the whole AGW argument, it is indeed refreshing to be able to read some easy to understand tome.
Another A class effort JN.
10
The 2003 spike in OHC at the 700m level was looked at here.
David Stockwell did an analysis of the statistical probability of such a spike being real here. Unfortunately the graphs have been lost at David’s due to some hacking but the point is made that the jump in OHC at the transition point to the ARGO system in 2003 is more likely due to continuity problems with the data rather than any actual heating.
The current NOAA graph on OHC to 700m is showing a leap in heat but Bob Tisdale may have an explanation for that.
What Bob has found is that the modelled increase in heating to 2000m, which is based on very sparse actual data, has been spliced into the 700m data. The 700m data can’t be warming because SST has been dropping markedly since 2003
10
Well, I’m obviously not using the link process right.
For those who are interested the links in my comment in order are:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/02/anomalous-spike-in-ocean-heat-content/
http://landshape.org/enm/possible-error-in-ohc/#more-3180
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/index.html
http://i51.tinypic.com/2mwgrvc.jpg
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2003/trend
[Cohenite, I fixed the links. Each of them had two “http://” which is why they didn’t work. Watch the link box which automatically puts in a “http://” so you either need to delete that or copy the desired link starting after “http://”.] ED
10
Thanks; good thing one of us is awake.
10
I routinely highlight the existing http:// and paste over top of it. That way it always comes out right.
10
“Every skeptic (and taxpayer) ought to know that since 2003 (when we started measuring oceans properly) the oceans have been cooling: Douglass and Keen 2010.”
Douglass and Knox. No wonder google couldn’t help me find Douglass and Keen
IMO skeptical science give this good treatment: http://www.skepticalscience.com/monckton-myth-1-cooling-oceans.html yes yes I know you all hate skeptical science.
10
MattB:
You assert:
Please explain how it is possible to “hate” a joke.
Richard
10
Matt B:
You neglected to explain how your link assists the carbon faith. Perhaps that’s because you knew that it doesn’t actually help. The blue lines in the graphs presented there, still show little or no ocean warming from 2003-4 to the present. But even if one considers a longer time span, there is no real comfort for the global warming models.
Here is a page that shows the IPCC predictions versus the actual data, for the northern and southern hemispheres. Once again we see, that from 2003-4, there hasn’t been any significant warming. But here we also see the warming over the longer period, versus the IPCC predictions. Note that warming for the north and south is about one fifth and one third, respectively, of what it is supposed to be. But the situation is actually worse than that.
Recall we are trying to find Trenberth’s missing heat, in order to remove the travesty. It was hoped, by warming enthusiasts, that all the missing predicted heat would be found in the oceans. But keep in mind, that the IPCC predictions did not expect or take into account that the oceans would need to do a more than their share of storage in the expected heat budget. Therefore, with these graphs, the oceans need to do more of the fulfillment work and the red lines need to be steeper – that’s if the oceans are to accommodate a greater share of the overall predicted heat, thus alleviating the travesty. But this would only make the prophesy-reality gap wider. Do you see?
So unfortunately, MattB, the heat is still missing and travesty is still trumps. Oh well, it’s not the end of the world.
10
MattB,
you answered Cohenite with a link.
No discussion is evident on your part at all.The Satellite data shows the slight cooling trend as well.
Try answering in YOUR OWN WORDS why you have a problem with his two postings.
10
REPLY: Thanks. Typo on Keen/Knox fixed. I’m reading too many papers at once.
And why would you think I hate Sceptical Science? Some of my most popular posts have been the ones where I show how he’s wrong. 🙂
BTW: Your link to the SkS page was the same article I linked to in the article above. You must have missed half my post above where I explained why the arguments on his page don’t make sense, and papers quoted are irrelevant, or did you not read his article either?
So once again, SkS is the gift that keeps on giving. Anyone can holler “Cherry picking!” and quote some irrelevant papers.
But thanks, I’ll update my link (to the print page) to your version, thanks, so people can see the comments too. Then you can see that none of the commenters really tested Cooks ideas.
10
MattB
Here is a link for you.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1960/mean:12/derivative/mean:12/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/from:1959/mean:12/derivative/mean:12/normalise
Can you please explain the time difference between the oscillations of temperature and those of CO2?
10
pardon? Is there a point here?
10
MattB,
It is rude to answer a question with a question.
He is putting you on the spot.It is an effective way to indicate why the AGW hypothesis is untenable.
Cheers.
10
What a crock of shit. if you’ll believer that you’ll believe anything. And it appears you do!
10
LOL,
your reply is rude too.
Thanks for the laughs.
10
Well, Patrick, not too sure what you are getting at, but lets have a go.
In this little graph, CO2 and temperature seem surprisingly well correlated. But (and maybe this is your point?) CO2 seems to lag temperature.
Of course in the short term, both temperature and CO2 follow the seasons. But I rather imagine that CO2 would follow the ocean temperatures, rather than air temperatures – as warming oceans would give off CO2. I don’t know if its the same everywhere, but in the ocean off Perth (where I’ve enjoyed many a pleasant swim), the water is warmest a few months *after* the hottest part of the year.
Of course, since you didn’t tell us what your point was, I am probably just tilting at windmills – but I need to do something to justify the money Jo gives me…
10
Well JB, since you’re so good at this how does that co2 fluctuate so quickly when it supposed to have a 100 year time for equilibration with the oceans?
10
Not to mention the 600 year lag between temperature and CO2 increases, in that order.
10
Its not always like that Streetcred. Snowball earth featured very cold temperatures for a long, long time until finally the level of CO2 in the atmosphere was enough to cause a melt, and we ended up with a very hot world.
Normally, however, you are right, warming precedes CO2. But if you deliberately pump CO2 into the atmosphere, it can cause warming.
No problem.
10
Maybe because it goes in and out each year, and only the difference between in and out matters?
10
John maybe you should talk to some agricultural engineers who will tell you different from what you seem to believe.
CO2 does not cause the warming you believe it does. If you deliberately and dramatically increase the CO2 concentration in a greenhouse the temperature goes down not up.
Your understanding of science, physics, chemistry, and thermodynamics (based on your comments) is atrocious. Learn what you are talking about please, you should hide in embarrassment from the foolish comments you continue to make regarding CO2.
10
Yeah John, you should hide in embarrassment. And so should Jo Nova, because you’re both under the atrociously unscientific impression that CO2 causes warming.
PS: Is thinking that greenhouses model the greenhouse effect awesome trolling or awesome stupid?
10
The earth is round not flat and is turning. The sun radiation is 1365 W/m2 of which almost half is infrared. Snow has high albedo for visible light but not for infrared. In sunny days the infrared would melt the snow. Water has a very low albedo and would warm at the surface through infrared and deep to 200 m through visible light. Currents would break the ice and melt it.
Rather for snowball earth to happen there is need of aerosols and cloud cover not letting the light reach the ocean. I very much doubt CO2 has anything to do with it.
Geology finds no corelation whatsoever between CO2 and atmosphere. In late ordovician was an ice age with 10 times more CO2.
10
Hi John,
I guess I missed the graph you are talking about where there is some correlation between CO2 and temperatures.
I did a cross-correlation between Berner & Kothavala (their GEOCARB III) and Veizier’s temperatures, and the two are ANTIcorrelated (to the tune of – 0.31).
And I have to take issue with your Snowball Earth, needing some “extra” CO2 to warm it up. GTS 2004 shows that at the time of the Rodinian glaciations, the estimated CO2 content of the atmosphere was about 13%, and possibly higher.
Like I said, CO2 and temperature are anticorrelated. Maybe you never heard the term ‘saturated’?
My best to all,
Mark H.
10
Hi Mark; in respect of the lack of correlation/anticorrelation between CO2 and temp you may be aware of Frank Lasner’s excellent piece
In respect of Snowball and the Earth’s emergence from it a recent paper by Lindzen suggests clouds were the key.
In respect of your own work on the anticorrelation do you have a link to a graph?
10
Hi Cohenite:
As far as I know, there are no digital files one can use. What I did was digitize the GEOCARB III graph and the Veizier graph from a website called:
http://www.globalwarmingart.com
Since correlation algorithms and other techniques are partially subjective, I have made repeated requests for others to verify my number; I don’t want to be accused of D-K syndrome.
Obviously, one must use caution digitizing from a “paper” graph, but my soft copies matched the hard copies perfectly. Oh, and I did some editing and modification (not of great significance) from the data presented in GTS 2004, which had some detail missing in the Veizier plot.
I would very much appreciate some notice as to your results. You could drop a note to Jo at:
support AT joannenova dot com dot au
and she (or a mod) could drop me an e-mail.
Say the word, and I will drop you my e-mail address, and we can swap stories off-blog.
Hope you have a great day, and good luck with processing,
Mark H.
10
Thanks Mark; I’ll have a closer look at the link; no doubt you are aware of these:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1644060/posts
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/16/searching-the-paleoclimate-record-for-estimated-correlations-temperature-co2-and-sea-level/#more-11753
10
Yes, I have those as well.
The first one is from Christopher Scotese
http://www.scotese.com
If you haven’t, check out his paleogeographic reconstructions.
As far as his temperature proxy, it is bit two “generalized”, and should be regarded more as guide, and not hard-and-fast nitty-gritty temperature data. Veizier and GTS 2004 are more robust.
Let me know if I can be of further assistance. Nice visiting with you,
Mark H.
10
Awesome Stupid.
10
the travesty of carbon trading:
1 Dec: Financial Times: Barclays hit with €82m lawsuit
By Megan Murphy and Anousha Sakoui in London and Pilita Clark in Durban
CF Partners, a UK advisory and trading firm, claims it came to Barclays in September 2008 to explore whether the British bank could provide financing for a potential deal with Tricorona, a Stockholm company that had a vast portfolio of carbon credits in the niche area of hydro power projects.
When that transaction stalled amid a deepening global financial crisis, Barclays used CF’s work on the value of Tricorona’s credits in pursuing its own deal with the Swedish company nearly two years later, CF alleges in a lawsuit filed in the High Court last month…
The case provides a glimpse into the highly specialised market for carbon credits, a once-booming area for global banks. Barclays’ deal for Tricorona and JPMorgan Chase’s purchase of a similar company, EcoSecurities, in 2009 came at a time of mounting interest in the business…
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/fe03ae04-1c33-11e1-9631-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1fLhlnrrS
10
2 Dec: Irish Times: China and Brazil threaten to block carbon offset trade
PILITA CLARK in Durban
DURBAN 2011: CHINA AND Brazil have warned that one of the world’s biggest carbon markets will be under threat if wealthy countries reject their demands for a new phase of the Kyoto protocol…
“The issue now is to avoid countries getting away with murder,” said Andre Correa do Lago, Brazil’s chief envoy, in a separate interview. “You cannot think you can have the instruments of the Kyoto protocol without belonging to the Kyoto protocol.”
Bankers and investors have long feared the UN-backed carbon offset market – the second biggest after the European Union’s emissions trading scheme – would become a political football in the fraught negotiations at the Durban summit, given its proximity to the December 2012 Kyoto expiry deadline…
Legal opinions differ on whether the CDM can technically be killed off if there is no extension of Kyoto commitments.
But the carbon industry worries that threats to end the offset market make investors nervous, which in turn raises the cost of capital for CDM projects in developing countries. “It’s like someone waving an empty gun around in a coffee shop,” said Miles Austin, director of the Climate Markets Investment Association.
“It scares off customers even though there are no bullets.”…
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/1202/1224308474749.html
10
the hypocrisy:
2 Dec: Mail & Guardian, South Africa: Dirty energy financiers shamed
by Lloyd Gedye
South African banks Standard Bank and Nedbank made the list, coming in at 60 and 76 respectively. Standard Bank had a total of €447-million tied up in project finance, investment banking, corporate loans and assets related to the coal-energy sector; Nedbank had a total of €119-million.
Absa’s 56.4% shareholder Barclays Bank came in fifth on the overall list with a total of €11.5-billion invested, and Standard Bank’s 20% shareholder, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, came in 13th with €6.2-billion invested.
Other major coal energy financiers include JP Morgan Chase with €16.5-billion, Citi Bank with €13.75-billion, Bank of America with €12.6-billion, Morgan Stanley with €12.1-billion, Deutsche Bank with €11.5-billion and the Royal Bank of Scotland with €10.9-billion.
The report was released by South African social and environmental justice organisations GroundWork and Earthlife Africa, alongside German environmental organisation Urgewald and international non-governmental organisation BankTrack, and is meant to embarrass the financing banks.
“While most large commercial banks provide figures on their annual investments into renewable energy, they neither track nor publish their annual investments into fossil fuel projects,” according to the report…
According to the World Development Report 2010, “if all coal-fired power plants scheduled to be built in the next 25 years come into operation, their lifetime CO2 emissions would be equal to those of all coal-burning activities since the beginning of industrialisation”.
“In Europe over 100 new coal-fired power plants are in a planning stage or under construction,” according to the report. “Last year, 173 coal-fired power plants were approved for construction in India — that is one power plant every two days.”
“All told, India has enough plants in the pipeline to expand its coal-fired capacity by 600% over the next two decades. “In China, two new coal plants are being completed per week,” it says. “If China’s carbon usage keeps up this pace, the country’s CO2 emissions in 2030 will equal the entire world’s CO2 production today.”…
The world’s private banks are not the only ones under the spotlight at COP17; a recent report has highlighted the World Bank’s role in funding dirty-energy projects.
Titled “Unclear on the Concept: How Can the World Bank Group Lead on Climate Finance without an Energy Strategy?”, the report released this week at COP17 points out that more than half of the World Bank’s energy funding in the past four years went to fossil fuel projects, comprising more than $15-billion of its total $33-billion financing in the energy sector.
By contrast, it spent only $6.5-billion on clean-energy financing…
http://mg.co.za/article/2011-12-02-dirty-energy-financiers-shamed/
10
29 Nov: Reuters: TABLE-Companies exposed to carbon price crash
Prices for U.N.-backed
carbon credits fell to a new record low below 5 euros last week,
as anxiety about economic growth fuelled panic selling…
Many project developers are thought to have some of their
carbon portfolio unhedged, but have not disclosed how many
credits are exposed to the current plunge in prices…
Below is a table outlining the main companies in the CDM,
their portfolios and the number of carbon credits their projects
are expected to generate by 2020.
The data comes from a UNEP Risoe database of registered
projects except in cases specified otherwise.
Company Million credits Number of
by 2020 Projects
Vitol** 300** 500
JP Morgan (Ecosecurities) 280* N/A
Mitsubishi 251 121
Enel 170 56
EDF 156 108
Barclays Tricorona 111.7* N/A
Natsource 107 20
Climate Change Capital 106 36
Noble 99.2 64
Marubeni 80.6 48
Camco International 72.5* 210
Endesa 75 48
Deutsche Bank 57 36
Rhodia 55.62 7
Goldman Sachs 52.8 4
Ineos 50.5 3
Natixis 50 18
RWE 50*** 140
Mercuria 48.67 58
Eon 42.3 11
Dong 41 26
Sindicatum 37.3 16
Trading Emissions 34.3 63
Source: Unep Risoe database of registered projects. In the
case where more than one buyer was identified, total credit
volume was divided equitably by number of buyers.
* Latest annual reports. In the case of JP Morgan and
Barclays Capital figures were taken from last published annual
reports in 2009 before de-listing. These figures include
unregistered projects.
** Vitol press release
*** Credits expected by 2012 taken from RWE statement in
2010.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/29/carbon-crash-stocks-idUSL5E7MS28R20111129
10
“The odd case of the missing Argo data”
I suspect the delays are due to the need to clean and check the data, which presumably is non-trivial. I think you can put forward an interesting case without tossing the conspiracy theory in at the end.
10
[…] The Travesty of the Missing Heat — deep ocean or outer space? – If there is one topic that trumps all others in climate science, it’s ocean heat. […]
10
You just don’t get it, Newt Gingrich and the Republicans stole the missing heat. They did it to ruin our holidays. The Gingrich who stole Christmas(and the missing heat)
10
From your friendly bankers:
Westpac Carbon and agriculture: Making sense of it all
By Westpac
Given our experience in trading carbon in Australia and New Zealand, our leadership in Agribusiness and recognised for sustainability and climate leadership, we want to assist customers and landholders generally, to understand the opportunities and challenges presented by the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI).
So, Westpac teamed up with long term partners Landcare Australia to present a series of information seminars aimed at helping producers and consumers understand the impact of carbon on their businesses.
Key industry specialists from organisations like the Australian Farm Institute, Westpac Institutional Bank and law firm Baker & McKenzie were among the presenters at these information sessions. Held in September and October in Rockhampton, Toowwoomba, Tamworth, Deniliquin, Warrnambool and Murray Bridge, there’ll potentially be more information seminars once the grain harvests are over.
Stuart Fredriksson from Westpac Institutional Bank highlighted the links between the Carbon Farming Initiative and the Emission Trading Scheme, key factors for investing in offset projects developed under the CFI and Westpac’s expertise in the NZ emissions market. Click here to watch the video.
Michael Rooney from Greening Australia talked about past and current government carbon offset policies, the development and structure of the Carbon Farming Initiative and its regulations. Click here to watch the video.
Ilona Miller from law firm Baker & McKenzie discussed some of the legal issues that arise from offset projects being developed under the Carbon Farming Initiative. Click here to watch the video.
Funding
10
Oh my, oh my, oh my!
You tell me what’s wrong with this image taken today, Friday at the ALP Conference.
Front Row At The Conference
Who is that man in the front row second from the far left.
Surely that’s not The Australian Minister For Climate Change And Energy, Greg Combet?
I guess the hugely important imperative of Climate Change that needs to be discussed at Durban is, er, not quite as important as the ALP Conference.
Hmm!
Should we be outraged that he doesn’t think it’s all that important, or should we be outraged that now Oz has passed the Legislation, it’s suddenly not quite as important.
I tell ya, I’m bloody outraged.
These people are really not serious at all.
And please, no comments about outraged if he goes or outraged if he doesn’t go. I also know he’ll be on the plane soon,
feeding from the troughrepresenting Australiapaid for with our moneylooking after our interests,gloating that Oz leads the Worldmentioning that Oz is pulling its weight.You may think this is my being hypocritical, but this is really my mentioning where this Minister’s ‘real’ personal priorities lie.
Tony.
10
Tony, he has to keep his job ( with the pay acceleration) so he can keep up the mortgage payments on his waterside home!
Toeing the line & acting the “True Believer” is a small price to pay
10
Tony
I think you’ll find most Heads of State and quite few Min.of Environment ( or the equivalent ) are Min.of Env. is not there. So there is unlikely to be any agreements made over there as Ban Ki Moon said earlier in the year when he was in Australia and NZ.
10
Jo, off-topic, but UEA lecturer Alan Kendall has posted at Bishop Hill, in relation to email 2639.txt, that
“First a needed correction. It is alleged that I used Climate Audit material in my teaching materials. Upon reviewing this material I find not a single instance of illustrations from that estimable site (sorry Steve). Instead most came from Watts up with That or from JoNova’s excellent site.”
10
Since the estimate is that about 85% of the energy lost to space gets there through convectional transfer in warm, moist air, it is not at all surprising that the warmists have missing heat. They specifically ignore the convectional heat engine of the water cycle, as that to recognize it would cancel their assumed positive feedback role for water vapor in magnifying the small warming produced by CO2.
They just plain refuse to recognize the blue whale on the fish tank!
10
“Despite the paucity of measurements below 1000m, the NCDC decided to add the deeper ARGO series to their 1950 -2010 graph on ocean heat. This creates a sudden uptick at the end of the graph.”
Taking two different data sets and splicing them together to give the desired picture/trend. I seem to recall a study attempting to correlate temperature to a small selection of tree core samples using a similar process using tree proxy and instrument record data to create a desired trend (hiding the decline in that instance).
10
Whoa whoa! Cut right there. I think I just saw someone saying ‘the timescales don’t make sense’ in the same passage in which they’ve drawn a trend line through an 8 year graph.
Numeracy much.
10
No Tristan, you’ve missed the point that is a rather large logic hole in the AGW theory haven’t you? If the ocean takes 1000 years to cycle the deep waters just how is that “missing” heat going to get to the deep in so little time as since say 1960 or 2003? Face it, the missing heat is missing because it isn’t there. The “travesty” is that you can’t account for it. It isn’t causing the predicted rate of sea level rise either.
I think Charles Higley @ 36 says it all.
10
This is not surprising Tristan intentionally misses a lot of points. Doesn’t really understand the “greenhouse effect” and likes to claim “the science” provides us evidence of numerous things that have never been validated but must be true because they support his ideology.
Tyndall and Arrhenius (and pretty much everyone who has come after them) apparently were not looking at absorptivity as claimed but opacity as examined here:
A Short History Of Radiation Theories
Arrhenius claims in Worlds in the Making
What a surprise, the theory is based on an assumption that “the atmosphere acted after the manner of the glass panes of hot-houses.” Even though this is in contradiction to what Fourier actually wrote.
Yet according to Tristan comparing what takes place in an actual commercial greenhouse with “the greenhouse effect” is just trolling. Considering the troll Tristan has proven himself/herself to be I suppose that is to be expected.
That he/she ignores the fact that:
Amazing “science” isn’t it? A theory from the late 1800’s which is based on a misinterpretation of prior work and which Wood (and more recently Nahle) have shown to be false.
I wonder if Tristan also subscribes to the aether hypothesis as well?
10
This 1000 years thing is a straw man and Joanne knows it. The oceans don’t need to ‘fully churn’ to shift heat.
The term “greenhouse” was coined for this atmospheric effect in the nineteenth century. A glass greenhouse and an atmospheric greenhouse both involve a physical barrier that blocks the flow of heat, leading to a warmer temperature below the barrier. The underlying physics is different, however. A glass greenhouse works primarily by blocking convection, and an atmospheric greenhouse works primarily by blocking thermal radiation, and so the comparison is not exact.
Alarmists 2 – 0 skeptics (misnomer)
10
Wrong Tristan, you haven’t been paying attention. The “atmospheric greenhouse” effect you claim to be speaking of is based on hypothesis and theories in which the assumptions did not take into account convection, circulation, or a number of other factors which effect the atmosphere.
Do keep up with the science before you claim you understand it. It all goes back to Tyndall and Arrhenius and their misinterpretation of Fourier’s work.
10
Fourier claimed the Earth was heated by “dark energy” emanating from space as well as the Sun.
Tyndall discovered that aqueous solutions containing dissolved CO2 absorbed IR radiation.
Arrhenius thought that past ice ages were due to a lack of CO2.
None of which is really relevant to the alleged Greenhouse Effect.
10
It is relevant in the way others have tried to make CO2 the cause while ignoring things like convection, conduction, evaporation, condensation, the difference in the atmospheric effect on temperature depending on if it is on the day side or night side of the planet, and the list goes on.
There are far too many other contributors and many ignored interactions that result in far more plausible causes of any warming or cooling than what the CO2 levels are.
10
My language wasn’t clear.
By naming Fourier, Tyndall and Arrhenius Warmists are doing nothing more than making appeals to authority. None of these scientist demonstrated that the Earth is heated by CO2.
10
Tristan:
Yes and everyone knows that. The point here is the AGW theory requires that heat is somewhere. It has been suggested that it is in the deep oceans conveniently out of sight and difficult to prove. The warmists have a problem in that just as you admit above the oceans do NOT have to fully churn to shift heat. That heat is free to move about AND should show up first at the surface.
The bleeding obvious is that heat HAS to move freely in the oceans it can’t just go to the deeps. That is your problem to resolve and the 1000 years may be a straw man but it’s your straw.
It is crap to suggest that the heat is hidden in the deep oceans. Similarly, it is crap to say that there is “heat in the pipeline” because of “climate inertia” (another favorite warmist scapegoat)
10
Slightly off topic, but it seems like despite the flood of press releases, the Durbin conference is notable for the number of points that the sceptics and non-believers appear to be amassing. It could all turn around next week, but it seems like the religion of AGW is in terminal decline. The way things are progressing, it seems like Australia might be trading carbon credits with itself. If it continues this way, there are going to be a lot of pissed off voters at the next election.
10
The heat is in Russell’s teapot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot
10
Thanks Cohenite,
The link to Frank Lasner’s ice core data analysis is very compelling. I was always wondering how, with the logarithmic nature of CO2, that the higher levels of CO2 would therefore require a steeper drop to affect temperature coming down, if CO2 was indeed the main driver. Yet, the temperature drops are steeper than the CO2 drops which is the reverse of what one could reasonably expect under these circumstances. Perhaps one of the trolls can explain that to me, because not only is the timing wrong, where cause follows effect (if you believe the CO2 hypothesis), but also the shape of the CO2/temperature correlation, to my eye, is also inconsistent with CO2 as the main driver.
Makes much more sense that CO2 is released/absorbed by the oceans in response to temperature rises/falls and that any effect of CO2 is to enhance the rises in temperature in a weak positive feedback on the upswing, then to “buffer” the responses in a weak negative feedback on the declines.
10
This was reply to Cohenite’s 26.2.2.1 comment. For some reason disconnected from the nested comment
10
Exactly, Winston. This is how I have always understood it. Explains why CO2 is generally higher over the warm oceans and particularly equatorial.
10
Len –
remember this one:
9 Nov 2011: SMH: Carbon tax just another cost – so get used to it
The director of emissions and environment at Westpac, Emma Herd, describes carbon as a bit like a currency. Each country has a different carbon currency and Australia will soon join the ranks.
Most can also trade in the international carbon currency, the CER…
http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-tax-just-another-cost–so-get-used-to-it-20111108-1n5k6.html
btw have i simply forgotten this Exchange was set up in 2001?
30 Aug 2002: ABC Rural: Carbon commerce – trading air in the new millennium
By Paula Doran
Who’s in?
There are several major players who have backed CO2 currency – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the European Union.
In 2001, Australia set up the first official futures exchange in carbon credit trades.
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/stories/carboncommerce.htm
39 Aug 2002: ABC Country Hour: Bank accepts carbon credits as currency – Michael Condon
Merchant Bank Rothschild Australia have set up a joint venture that is aiming to begin trading in carbon credits.
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/sa/stories/s663036.htm
with the banks funding “dirty” coal-fired power plants, whose “lifetime CO2 emissions would be equal to those of all coal-burning activities since the beginning of industrialisation”, see Mail & Guardian link above, you would think they’d have the decency to stay out of the phony “carbon dioxide” business altogether.
10
More evidence to add to the IPCC climate science corruption file. I can’t wait for the legal trials.
10
Why should we trust the Argo data even when/if they do release it? They’re obviously corrupt. Worse still they’re desperate. If we could trust them they’d act in a trustworthy manner and release the data immediately. Better yet they’d make the Argo data transmission publicly available in real time.
10
I think you’re all missing the point. The oceans are, indeed, storing Kevin’s missing energy maybe not in Joules but in Dollars.
Anyone familiar with the fourth law of thermo$ynamics will instantly see the mechanism. The latent heat of Consensusialism (Units=$ per Funding Application i.e. $(FA-1))
For those unfamiliar with the IV’th law and its many interpretations, let me quote it at its’ simplest.
In any situation where fudge factors are required to close the gap between empirical data and multi-modelled projections then 97% of the discrepancy is due to disinformation by Fossil Funding Denialists and hence can be ignored. The other 3% is due to CO2. This is known because (a) Mankind adds about 3% of the total planetary CO2 flux per annum and (b) We can’t think of anything else that can be causing us to warm up from the LIA!
Thank goodness that so many able politicians understand this simple science and have taken corrective action. Keep spending those tax-dollars folks and keep Global Warming at bay. I sense a new SI unit in the making. The Jouliar – Energy held at bay through the wise application of $A.
Gawd bless you Maam
10
Can’t help it: Deep Heat
10
Yeah, one tube stores all of the missing heat of a whole year. Why did Kevin and the team not think of that?
10
Occam’s razor is still our weapon of choice. Whereas the alarmist camp have to make up more and more intricate excuses for their failures, a simpler and more reliable hypothesis is, as Jo mentioned, that the climate models are bovine excretia.
Cheers,
Speedy
10
Well put!
AGW theory and GCM operations sound like my ’60’s chemistry classes where every “rule” was followed by a slew of exceptions to the rule (band-aids) to account for real world conditions. My understanding is that chemical theory later went through a major Occam’s Razor revamp into a more reasonable and comprehensive theory to account for, and absorb, the so-called exceptions, most of which were deemed irrelevant or simply wrong.
10
Great article today in the Blogosphere column at Icecap. The Confused Climate Change Consensus by Art Horn of Icecap.
http://www.icecap.us/
10
http://www.examiner.com/civil-rights-in-portland/einstein-like-breakthrough-climate-science-part-1#ixzz1byTpHAbp
(link fixed) ED
“….As long as the Opacity of the Atmosphere is considered limitless in the calculations related to Radiative Transfer a precise model that matches global conditions cannot be made. This technical language may sound intimidating, however, the concepts are simple at their core. Our atmosphere is neither opaque, nor completely transparent. It is semi-transparent, and that is the basis of the error that current climate models are making. IPCC scientists, including those at MIT are not using the correct numbers for these concepts. This is one of the major reasons we see so many wildly different climate predictions. One group will report 6 degrees of warming over a century, another will say 1 degree, and none of them are accurate over the entire system.
Because the solutions each group comes up with vary so widely, and because their models cannot be applied systemically, only one conclusion can be made: there is an error in the math somewhere. Somewhere basic and fundamental, that all of these learned scientists are using, that all of their calculations depend on as the foundation of their Science.
In 2007, Dr Ferenc Miskolczi found that error and corrected it.
Dr. Ferenc M. Miskolczi released his work: “GREENHOUSE EFFECT IN SEMI-TRANSPARENT PLANETARY ATMOSPHERES” in 2007 in the Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Society. Based on his previous studies, in this ground breaking work, Dr. Miskolczi states and then mathematically proves, it is water – the Oceans and the water vapor they generate in the atmosphere, that acts as the mechanism of Equilibrium.
The answer lay in the complex science of Radiative Transfer. To clarify this complex science, I contacted Dr. Miklos Zagoni. He is a physicist and science historian at Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, and is now a governmental adviser in his native country of Hungary. Dr Zagoni was once a solid supporter of Anthropogenic Global Warming – Man Made Global Warming. That is until Dr. Miskolczi corrected the math. He now works closely with Dr. Miskolczi, and other scientists who are mathematically describing reality as it is, not as the political establishment wants it to be.
In an email conversation he related the basic nature of the error:
“They [IPCC Climatologists] regard one specific parameter (opacity [of the atmosphere]) to be infinite in a specific approximation, according to an old and still unrecognized math error in the history of radiative transfer. Miskolczi revealed that error, gave the correct mathematical and physical solution, and the referred quantity became finite [specific] in his hands, and he became able to calculate its value correctly. His calculation proved that with finite opacity (or transparency — we are talking about here not the visible, but the infrared wavelengths – the correct name of the parameter is optical depth) leads to constrained greenhouse effect and constrained greenhouse surface temperatures because cooling (exactly because of this transparency) is possible on the required level.”
In laypersons terms, this means that Earth’s atmosphere is a balanced system at equilibrium. This is demonstrated by the simple and unavoidable fact that we still have an atmosphere. If the system could not find an equilibrium, the air we breathe would have been long gone millions if not billions of years ago when CO2 and other greenhouse gasses were at levels far greater than they are today. The correctness of his math is proven by his models; they match nearly exactly the actual vertical temperature readings we have recorded on earth. What’s more, because his math and physics are correct, this model can also be applied to Mars temperature data. When you have a model that matches the data, and can be applied over the whole system and get a match, you have the correct theory.
E=MC2 is an equally true theory, and once scientists could perform the experiments needed to prove it, Einstein was hailed as a Genius and hero. In climate science, the theory is proven with computer models and real measured temperatures. Until Dr. Miskolczi solved the equation, no theory fit all the data. Dr. Miskolczi is today’s Einstein in Climate Science.
To put this in even simpler terms, consider a child’s teeter totter. On one side you have Greenhouse gasses such as CO2. On the other you have the single greatest greenhouse gas on earth, Water Vapor. As you increase the CO2 level, the water vapor side goes down. If CO2 levels drop, the water vapor side increases. This see-saw effect is referred to as equilibrium. The error in the mathematics used by MIT and other IPCC climatologists is in the base of this see-saw, “in the historic approximation of the basic transfer equation. Having the exact solution, the energy balance conditions can be correctly established and the work of the opposite powers to maintain the equilibrium can be precisely described.” according to Dr Zagoni. This is a drastic oversimplification, but it is descriptively accurate. Because they cannot precisely describe the basic energetic agencies of the teeter totter,
“they [believe] it can be it can be permanently turned up or down. But Miskolczi proved that any imbalance our CO2 emissions caused was effectively countered by about 1 per cent decrease in the water vapor amount, and the system still fluctuates around its theoretical equilibrium value. His calculations on the NASA / NCAR atmospheric database proved that the Earth’s greenhouse effect does not show any steady increase, regardless of our CO2 emissions.”
CO2 cannot cause global warming.
Science describes things accurately as they are, not as one wants them to be.
The IPCC is coming up with different numbers because they are using an incorrect model.
I asked Dr. Zagoni: “Is there a simple explanation as to why CO2 is more or less irrelevant? Is it simply because the existence of so much water on earth, and there by so much water vapor, that CO2 is simply overwhelmed by it?”
Dr. Zagoni replied, “Not overwhelmed, but dynamically controlled by the practically infinite reservoir of water vapor in the surface of the oceans. The system need not ‘wait’ for our CO2 emissions if it had the possibility to warm. There is the tool at its hands to do that at any time. So it has been working on its energetically possible maximum for long before our emissions.”
Water vapor is in reality, the greatest heat source and heat sink on earth. 71% of the surface of the earth is water. Water can absorb energy and become vapor. It can release energy and fall as rain, which by definition is cooler than the vapor it condensed from – releasing heat. When you boil water, it becomes steam as it cools it condenses again into water.
When the earth warms, water vapor is released by the liquid sources that make up the majority of our planet. That water vapor will then condense, releasing that heat into the upper atmosphere and space as infrared radiation, and then falls back to earth as rain or snow. This is the very basic engine of our climate, and Dr.’s Zagoni and Miskolczi have mathematically proven it, they have solved the equation.
As Dr. Zagoni put it: “The earth is cooling on its possible maximum rate, [the] greenhouse effect of any further GHG [Green House Gas] release is countered by minor (almost immeasurably little) changes in the hydrological cycle.” The atmosphere corrects itself. If it were not capable of doing so, life would not have evolved on this planet.
The Earth, and her very great abundance of water, is quite literally a planet sized air-conditioner. And it’s been running for billions of years, through vast planet wide volcanic activity releasing much more green house gasses than man has ever released in his combined history, through massive asteroid strikes large enough to cause mass extinctions, even with such enormously catastrophic events the planet has the ability to return to equilibrium. Man’s emissions can effect no change in this fundamental defining quality of the planet. The Earth cannot warm up because of Greenhouse gasses.”
10
Here you go:
The 2007 paper
Some related work from 2010
10
oops –
http://www.examiner.com/civil-rights-in-portland/einstein-like-breakthrough-climate-science-part-1#ixzz1byTpHAbp
10
http://miskolczi.webs.com/
10
The phase changes of water, solid to liquid to vapor is the repository of Kevin Trenbeth’s missing heat. It is not lying at the bottom of the Marianas trench, it is consumed by the latent heat of vaporization of the oceans to water vapor. There, solved for you Kevin. Miskolczi showed that from 1945 to 2008 the net optical depth of the atmosphere varied about a constant level, hence CO2 rises from 1945 to 2008 were balanced out by a 1% drop in water vapor, so therefore the rise in temperature as arbitrarily measured by “global average temperature” could not be as a result of CO2. Because the proposed mechanism of this warming was supposedly the Greenhouse effect, but this net GH effect of all participants in the atmosphere did not increase, so by a process of elimination, the warming must have been due to some other source- above average solar activity, solar electromagnetic activity, UHI, altered land use, coming out of LIA, or most likely a combination of all of those.
I have no doubt that the suppression and marginalization of Miskolczi’s paper was because it was so damaging to the CO2 demonization meme, and they could not afford to give it any oxygen, because it relies on observations, not models. Just as observations trump models, water in its various forms trumps any atmospheric GH issues as it is responsible for 96% of the GH effect and is the greatest heat transferring factor on the planet.
10
The fact that a body of water has a temperature above zero degrees demonstrates it contains heat.
In the tropics, the oceans absorb an enormous amount of heat… for example, on a fine day in March, just compare the temperature of the sea around the Seychelles Islands with the temperature of the sea along England’s South Coast… you’ll appreciate what I mean.
Consider Darwin. Its Casuarina open air olympic-size swimming pool is exposed to the sun in June/July with its water temperature hovering around 22/23C. In December/January it hovers around 29/30C. That’s shows how much extra heat is absorbed by a swimming pool between ‘winter’ and ‘summer’ in Darwin (i.e. between the cool dry season and the warm humid wet season).
70% of the planet is covered by water. It certainly absorbs an incredible amount of heat which is moved around by the ocean currents. But then everyone knows this, except of course the disciples of the Church of Man-Made Global Warming”!
10
You may want to look at some of the entries on my blog site.
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com/2011/12/world-mean-temperature-warmscools.html
The heating and cooling of the Earth is primarily driven by the relative impact of El Ninos
compared to compare to the impact of La Ninas, over a given 30 year period.
The relative impacts of the El Nino/La Nina (or ENSO) phenomenon is driven by long
term changes in the Sun (i.e. the Grand Minima) and atmospheric tides induced by
long term changes in the strength of the extreme Lunar tides.
10
You are perfectly right Jo. This is a very relevant topic and flies in the face of the modellers. The “CO2 based models” are shown again totally wrong by this data, however at the basic core of the physic process, which let us deduct that there is a basic flaw inside those models.
The late release of data makes me sad, it reminds of the sea level data which was delayed also a long time before being released to show a relevant drop. And looking back at the time the “official scientific sea level meter community” came with the GIA adjustment for the sea level trend adding +0.3 mm per year. BTW, sea level seems to be still dropping:
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2011/11/global-sea-level-still-dropping/
Can it be that we will see the release of the ARGO data only with a new adjustment to compensate for the cooling of the inner earth core due to radioactive decay? I don’t like delays of data release and spin. Data is data and should be released separate to any comments.
Spinning the data is no longer science.
10
Great interview with Marc Morano re climategate 2.0.
http://www.corbettreport.com/interview-419-marc-morano/
10
The reason that Kevin “travesty” Trenberth cannot find the missing heat in the oceans is simply because it is not there. Climate modellers have treated the surface of the oceans and the land as equally effected by long wave infrared around the 15 micron band. However water that is free to evaporatively cool is not effected by incident LWIR to the same extent as other materials. 15 micron LWIR cannot penetrate a fraction of the 1mm evaporatively cooled skin layer of liquid water. LWIR impacting this skin layer appears to just trip water molecules to their vapour state without changing the thermal gradient across the 1mm layer. This means LWIR re-radiated by CO2 is largely ineffective at slowing the cooling of the oceans.
Those suggesting that LWIR re radiated from CO2 can slow the cooling of the oceans to any significant degree appear to have got the basic physics wrong. The lab style empirical experiment to check the impact of LWIR on liquid water is relatively simple to conduct. Instructions can be found here.
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/konrad-empirical-test-of-ocean-cooling-and-back-radiation-theory/
This experiment has been designed so that it can be cheaply replicated by others. For more accurate results, the foil reflector on one side of the experiment can be replaced with a foil tray of warm water with a matt black base. This provides a more constant source of LWIR around the correct wavelength.
10
Hi Konrad
Thanks for that outline.
A great boundary layer picture.
10
In case no one has posted this http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/climategate-part-ii_610926.html
10
Historical sea temperature data was collected from ships crossing the oceans. As someone that used to be involved in shipbuilding, I know that these measurements were mostly taken at the Seachest were seawater enters a ship and is used for various operations like flushing the toilet etc.
Many of these ships used what are called “Keel Coolers” where engine cooling water is run through a radiator welded to the hull. I still wonder how these units affected temperatures being taken at the Seachests.
10
Hi Pete H.
You ask: “I still wonder how these units affected temperatures being taken at the Seachests.”
The late great John L Daly was a former Mariner and in his excellent article ‘What’s Wrong With the Surface Record’ he has a good section on Marine Temperatures which may help.
http://www.john-daly.com/ges/surftmp/surftemp.htm
Cheers from Tassie where the first 5 days of summer have felt more like the first five days of winter!
10
Thanks Jo, great post.
I think this covers it nicely for the question of the energy balance vs ocean heat content:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/working-out-where-the-energy-goes-part-2-peter-berenyi/
10
Hey bananabender,
You said:
And I agree entirely on both parts, I misunderstood what you were trying to state and (while the scientists in question had hypothesis regarding CO2) none of them demonstrated that CO2 does any of what is claimed by current scientists who also have not demonstrated that CO2 is the cause.
Though they are really good at adjusting their models whenever they fail then claiming that they only work if CO2 is the primary forcing or accepted as having certain attributes or <insert excuse> (at least until the next time the model fails).
Most people involved in modelling (scientists, engineers, etc.) whose models are as unreliable given the parameters being used would question whether their parameters were correct, if all parameters were accounted for, etc.
Not our climate gurus, with this bunch it has to be CO2 and they will adjust every other damn thing they can to make it work (regardless of whether reality reflects those adjustments) so they can continue claiming CO2 is the “driver” of the model.
It would make one hell of a Monty Python skit if it wasn’t for all the political and economic destruction they are causing.
10
Jo.
This is O/T but check out the Green future the “elites” are mapping out for us!
“18 January 2011, London: A report launched today by the Lean Economy Connection, commissioned by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil, calls for a nationwide system for ensuring fair and equal access to fuel as energy scarcities develop. Dr Caroline Lucas MP; Dr Jeremy Leggett, chairman and founder of Solarcentury and SolarAid; and John Hemming MP spoke at the launch, held at Portcullis House, Westminster this morning.
The report, entitled Tradable Energy Quotas, sets out a detailed proposal for a scheme which would ensure fair and equal entitlements to fuel and energy under conditions of scarcity, while also guaranteeing that the government meets its commitment to an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050.
The report proposes an electronic energy rationing system called TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas). Under TEQs, units of ‘energy credit’ are distributed free to all adults. Surplus units can be bought and sold, meaning that there is no upper limit set on the number of units owned by one person. Businesses and government bid for their energy units at a weekly tender, creating revenue to help fund the infrastructure and skills that the economy needs to end its dependence on fossil fuels.
Caroline Lucas MP, leader of the Green Party, said: “TEQs have long been Green Party policy, as we believe that we need a fair and transparent system to reduce energy demand and give each person a direct connection to the carbon emissions associated with their lifestyle. The TEQs scheme would guarantee that the UK’s targeted carbon reductions are actually achieved, while ensuring fair shares of available energy.”
Google ‘Tradable Energy Quotas’ for links to the Lean Report.
Imagine the size of the bureaucracies necssary to set up and administer such a proposal. Ponzi scheme springs to mind!
10
And the guff Jo started this thread off with will turn, with some wider reading, into the usual rubbish.
10
Oh Maxine, you know it only turns into rubbish when you show up.
10
Stirring the pot while making another home brew, Maxine?
10
how many employed, pro carbon dioxide tax rallied?
10
NOv 24 –
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/8914255/No-new-Big-Freeze-says-Met-Office.html
Dec 3 –
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/8933891/Snow-set-to-hit-Britain.html
“The Met Office has issued severe weather warnings …”
“Up to 15cm of snow could fall on high ground …”
Do we measure anyones predictive capability?
10
‘Our’ CSIRO has released a new study claiming global CO2 levels to be the highest in 800,000 years. No surprise that this study was partly funded by the Australian government and no doubt timed to support the Australian Carbon Tax. Too bad global temperatures don’t seem to be following these CO2 levels placing further doubt upon the positive feedback assumptions of the CSIRO, IPCC et al.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/carbon-emissions-the-highest-for-the-past-800000-years-according-to-australian-led-global-carbon-project-research/story-e6freuy9-1226213536411
10
How come the data of OHC here looks so different from the one posted today at Roger Pielke Sr’s blog:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/upper-ocean-heat-content-change-by-bob-tisdale/
10
It’s okay, I figured it out. There has apparently been a correction to the data, see http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/july-to-september-2011-nodc-ocean-heat-content-anomalies-0-700meters-update-and-comments/
10
Bob Tisdale has a chart of the 700 meter ARGO OHC continuing for the quarter beyond your chart: http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/figure-4.png which shows a very large jump in OHC. The trend of the Argo data is now up not down – though not by much. The models remain way off – but less so than twelve months ago. Which I don’t like. Hope for a reduced anomaly in the last quarter of the year!
10
And the ‘guardians’ of the Argo data are not audited or supervised or ‘transparent’. I’m extremely suspicious of them.
10
I should have linked Bob’s full post which is here
10
I find that SkS is a very useful site. It can help me quickly check a skeptic claim to at least see what the alarmists have to say about it. Checking SKS here: “Claims that the ocean has been cooling are correct.” Well there you have it, that wasn’t too hard!
10
Cookster,
Regarding the assertion that CO2 is the highest it has been for 800,000 years, I am surprised that they would even publish that. It just about makes the skeptics case. What was so bad 800,000 years ago? Was there a sixth mass extinction event then?
10
800,000 years was the limit of the data, not the date when CO2 was definitely higher.
Other data exists to suggest at least 2.1 million years.
Some even furhter – Last Time Carbon Dioxide Levels Were This High: 15 Million Years Ago
10
On Alarmist Cherry Picking,
If there is a more appropriate place for this comment, please feel free to direct me or move it:
This relates to SkS cherry picking data to compare to the MWP. I think it is rather fraudulent actually.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period-intermediate.htm
They show Mann’s chart of the world with 300 years of MWP data, 950-1250 which includes, according to Mann’s data, 150 years of warming followed by 150 years of cooling to almost average 0. So SkS compares that to a similar chart done of 1999 – 2008 showing basically the recent warming peak. They do this to answer the question “How does the Medieval Warm Period compare to current conditions?”
Is it any wonder that one chart is full of red, and the other white? How is this misrepresentation science?
10
Nova’s graph seems to be missing a bit.
http://itsnotnova.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/nova-hides-the-argo-data.jpg
22
Your comprehension seems to be missing a bit.
THE ARTICLE IS ABOUT ARGO FLOATS. THEY WERE LAUNCHED IN 2003 as the article clearly states.
So a graph of ARGO data from 2003 IS MISSING NOTHING YOU MORON.
If all you’re interested in is misleading people, you need to do better than that lame effort.
Now run along you intellectual midget.
30
No the article is about Missing Heat. Read the title carefully.
Nova only wants to use Argo data, because, at least for the first five years, the data didn’t show much of a trend.
Plot the data now and it shows a clear increase in heat.
Plot the data using ALL available information, not just the first 700 meters and you find even more heat.
12
James,
Jo cites the papers she used to create the graph. Besides ignoring the fact that ARGO data didn’t exist before 2003 and that the paper was submitted 2010 (making your post a strawman argument), The ugly web site you have linked to uses Levitus etal guesses. It is well known that Levitus used models and “adjusted” data to come up with his guess. Raw ARGO data does not show what Levitus came up with. How many times do you have to be told this?
You Warmists need to get straight what empirical data really is.
Now I’d like to know why you are busy trolling old threads and bombing them with your crap?
30
And I assume by your tone that any adjustments Levitus has done are (no pun intended) unjustified?
Do show us all why exactly (cue the usual web blogger science site).
11
Well James, since you already know about those science sites I won’t waste your time with more cues.
Why don’t you explain why you don’t cast a skeptical eye on Levitus? Models instead of empirical, you do know the difference don’t you?
20
Mark D, you are the one proposing it is incorrect. YOU need to establish why YOU think their work is wrong and support YOUR argument.
YOUR avoidance to provide evidence suggest YOU are incapable of supporting YOUR claim.
11
[…] […]
10
Mark D. & Baa Humbug
The Argo, both the 700m and 2000m depths now show warming.
http://itsnotnova.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/ocean-heat-content-700-vs-2000.gif
You can replicate this by using the data that Jo directed us to in one of her graphs.
Joanne’s refusal to consider data below 700m seems quite odd. Subterranean heat has been considered, but it cannot explain the amount of heat found.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/underground-temperatures-control-climate.htm
It is not scientific approach to simply discard data because a web blogger can’t understand it. Some kids can’t undertsand how a plane flies, yet even they accept that they do. It’s obvious from Nova’s “Subterranean heat” hypothesis statement that she is no expert on the subject.
[James, One of the rules of this site is that politeness is required. You are straying very close to a line that I will not let you cross – be warned] Fly
62
James: “Joanne’s refusal to consider data below 700m seems quite odd…”
I considered exactly that data in this post. There is no “refusal”. I linked to skeptical science, and to alarmist papers. A major point in this post was explaining that the data below 700m doesn’t help alarmists. The idea that CO2 10km above the surface can heat the water more than 700m below the surface without heating the water in between abjectly defies rational explanation. Your statement above is demonstrably misleading and completely wrong. You repeatedly use this dishonest tactic. It’s classic troll timewasting.
You can apologize. Your posts will be moderated until you do.
74
James has bombed this site and hasn’t shown any interest in discussion or illumination of problems.
He “spaces” by cutting comments from other posts, then just ridicules them for sport.
There is an obvious need to be careful about squashing others opinions but where the posts are continuously abusive in tone and disruptive there is a problem.
One comment yesterday mentioned that he had considered not coming back to this site because it had become unpleasant.
Perhaps this unpleasantness is related to the dislocation and frustration caused by TROLLS and because they seem to have free rein, regular contributors start to become aggressive and abusive and weird towards them.
Their target achieved: Disruption and side tracking of good comment, disjointed flow and in less detailed analysis and a site that looks like a bunch of off the air high school kids have been let loose.
We have all made ,mistakes in posting less than perfect comments but there may be a better way that means saying goodbye, au revoir, arrivederci to some of the trolls who are just targeting the site to mess it up?
KK 🙂
10
I’m sorry.
Please change my sentence from “Joanne’s refusal to consider data below 700m seems quite odd” to “Joanne’s refusal to include data below 700m seems quite odd”.
[SNIP]
——————————–
Try again James. That’s dishonest too. I did consider it. That was the point of the post – I just disagree with you. I’m sure you can write a whole sentence that is honest if you keep at it. When you get the hang of being accurate, then I’ll help you understand why you’re wrong. 😉 – Jo
30
You can’t understand downwelling or the circulation of the ocean, so you refuse to bellieve the data.
Not very scientific!
30
One sentence, two wrong conclusions. Not very accurate.
23
Jelly-James: Congratulations, your grovelling apology is accepted ;-). Obviously Jo did not “refuse” anything, Mrs James merely could not construct an accurate sentence. Thanks for your good manners – oh wait, — you think making baseless spin accusations as an anonymous coward is polite.
Yes, I don’t find warming at that depth convincing when there isn’t warming above. Remember I’m talking about Joules of energy lost since 2003 (when ARGO started and we finally got good records). You think warmer air can heat water a kilometer under the surface in that time. I think you are gullible.
Sure, I don’t know why it’s warming at that depth. Nor do you. I find subterranean heating more believable. Whatever. No one has good data at that depth. Skeptical Science resort to a logical fallacy yet again: argument from ignorance. “We don’t know why its warming in the deep ocean therefore it must be due to coal fired power stations!” It isn’t warming fast enough in any case.
As usual, your team don’t have any numbers that matter. Our team has looked at the joules and shown that even though ocean heat content is rising (in the long run) it isn’t enough. The models are wrong. Two thirds of the energy they predict ought to be collecting in the ocean is missing. You do a kindy-kid Yes-No analysis where “OHC is greater than zero” means the models are right and CO2 did it. We grown ups look at the numbers.
James, you haven’t given us a real email. I’ve sent emails over the last two months and your address is a fake. You have continually abused the right to post here, we’ve been generous, but this time wasting ends now. If you want to fish over past threads, toss baseless insults, never apologize, and keep hammering points that anyone can see are silly, then you’ll need to come back with your real name or real email. – Jo
44
Give you my email address? No way! You say you’ve been writing to me for months, THAT’S EXACTLY WHY I DON’T GIVE YOU MY EMAIL!!!!
[It’s a basic requirement of this blog that commenters give a real working email address. I’ve only sent you two emails, both asking for a reply to prove the email was real. I’ve known for 2 months that you were failing a basic rule on this site. It means I couldn’t send you your comments that were snipped as a courtesy to save you writing them from scratch, nor could I help explain how to improve and speed up your comments through moderation. Despite the fact that I could have busted you in early October, I generously let you keep posting, mainly because there are so few honest AGW fans so we take what we can get. But enough is enough. If you thought CO2 mattered you’d be happy to provide a working email in order to help educate us right? I guess that shows how much you “care” about the planet eh? – Jo]
The science presented by SkS was this paper –> http://www.solid-earth.net/1/5/2010/se-1-5-2010.pdf
Which showed why subterranean heating cannot account for the amount of heat by several orders of magnitude.
[And is still a logical fallacy as I claimed – Jo]
I’m not saying you need to explain it, but you shouldn’t exclude that data and conclude that the ocean is cooling, simply because you can’t fathom how the heat gets there. Your “team” exclude the data below 700m and then tells us the models don’t match up. No shit Sherlock!
And once again your narrow mind needs correcting. The heat doesn’t need to travel from the surface to the 2000m in that time.
Think about this hypothetical – In one day 1W of heat travels from 1999m to 2000m, 1W travels from 1998m to 1999m, 1W travels from 1997m to 1998m, etc etc to till 1W travels from 0m to 1m, 1W enters the surface. In one day the 2000m depth gained 1W, and the ocean above it remained the same temp, but the 1W of heat only travelled 1 meter.
[And 1W went through the Transporter from 1m to 700m right? Good luck with writing up your peer reviewed paper on that. – Jo]
Obviously I’ve oversimplified this example compared to real life but the demonstration is to show how it could work.
And whoopee that the models aren’t exactly right! Expecting them to be is YOUR flaw, not theirs. Their forecasts get closer to observations than you and … oh, that’s right, you don’t make predictions.
[You haven’t done the numbers. Even if we count the joules below 700m, you still can’t find the missing energy. There isn’t enough. The models are not just a bit wrong, but have “no skill” in predicting anything. A roulette wheel would be cheaper and have a similar success rate. – Jo
No doubt you’ll be weak and not respond (or allow further reply) on the basis that I won’t give you my email (and don’t bother asking me again). That would be rather pathetic, but then when you can’t argue based on logic, what alternatives do you have?
[Thanks for making your judgement, intent and manners so clear. Since there is no chance you’ll comply with blog rules, I’ve added your fake necrotic.com details to the filter that sends it directly to spam. There are 12,000 comments in there. No one reads those. But thanks for being target practice. – Jo]
10
Printscreened – and ready for posting to itsnotnova to show off your tactics.
🙂 Have a nice day.
—-
[Please do. You’ve worked hard to break rules so you could claim you were “censored”. All you needed was a real email… Jo]
10
Jo,
I think the argument you are making – that heat cannot get to the deep ocean without being “seen” moving through the 0-700m layer – originates with Roger Pielke Sr. The counter argument seems to be that heat moves through this layer by mechanical mixing and not diffusion and the observing system simply lacks resolution required for the heat fluxes.
I watched a debate with Pielke & Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate – it’s out there somewhere but I don’t have the link handy at the moment. I’m sure you can find it by googling. My impression was that Pielke backed down during that discussion and I don’t recall seeing him ever make this argument since.
Of course, I haven’t seen him categorically disavow the position either – maybe he has his doubts now?
Hope that helps.
Alex Harvey
40
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/10/global-warming-and-ocean-heat-content/comment-page-1/#comment-216144
41
Jo, Good Stuff.
Its nice to read someone who understands the first law – conservation of energy.
I have engaged in some in depth debates on blogs like Skeptical Science, Realclimate, Tamino etc and when serious inconsisencies and exaggerations have been exposed in technical discussion – I have been abused and banned by the advocacy scientists and amateurs running them.
As a concrete example, the TSI has always been quoted as 1366 W/sqm in most climate science papers to date. Only one satellite group was showing readings of 1361.5 W/sqm going back to 2005. These SORCE TIMS satellite readings were scorned by the likes of Trenberth et al, however the AGU meeting in December 2011 produced corroboration by a French group of the 1361.5 number, and in discussion with Gavin Schmidt on his Realclimate blog, he has conceded that the 1361.5 number is probably right and will work its way through the literature. Trouble is that it blows the Trenberth global heating imbalance calculations out of the water and implies a lot smaller heating imbalance which is consistent with recent reduced OHC numbers.
This is a serious climate science issue and I have been banned from Realclimate since raising it.
Here is the link you might find interesting:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/05/ohc-modelobs-comparison-errata/comment-page-1/#comment-236953
10
This OHC issue was sorted out by a gentleman called Berényi Péter in May 2010 on SKS blog. I checked his numbers and confirmed his conclusion.
Berényi Péter came up with a jump of 6-8E22 Joules in OHC between 2000 and 2004, and I read the Lyman and quoted Trenberth charts as about 7E22 Joules 2001-2003. This translates to a TOA imbalance of about 2.1W/sq.m when model based estimates (Dr Trenberth) quoting Hansen’s 0.9W/sq.m over a similar period.
The satellites showed no such jump in TOA imbalance in this period.
Sharp jumps in short time periods which match the transition to Argo from a much smaller more fragmented XBT system can only be an offset error – an artefact of the transition.
If there is an imbalance at TOA then the energy must show up somewhere in the biosphere and the oceans have vastly greater capacity than the land or atmosphere (or ice melt)to store heat energy.
The integral of the TOA energy flux imbalance WRT time should show up in the increase in OHC. Where else could it feasibly be absorbed in sufficient quantity?
As far as six years of flat OHC data being insufficient to drawing conclusions on warming – then explain where the missing heat is stored in this period when CO2GHG theory requires a continuous and increasing TOA imbalance of about 0.9W/sq.m and rising.
The drawing on linear trend lines in OHC data 1993-2012 including a step jump across the XBT-Argo transition is simply bogus.
10
[…] http://joannenova.com.au/2011/12/the-travesty-of-the-missing-heat-deep-ocean-or-outer-space/ […]
10
[…] Just how much heat is lost? Using Cook’s 4 Hiroshima bombs per second calculation over 15 years, it comes out to 1.9 billion Hiroshima bombs of heat. It’s gone – missing! Nobody is able to find it. This is a magnitude of error of monumental proportions, committed by the climate modelers. That’s how far off they are. This is way beyond left field. It’s not even in the ball park anymore. Soon we are going to need an awfully big ocean to hide that kind of error. Little wonder that an exasperated Kevin Trenberth once called it a “travesty“. […]
10