Where's the Heat, Cooling Oceans

[glc]

Oct 8, 2010 16:46:34 GMT gwaarin said:

Here is a breakdown of the PDO over the past 110 years....month by month.

Icefisher is right on the money with his claim. You can see it here with your own eyes:
jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest

Are you having trouble following the discussion? It's not me that is saying that the PDO has switched modes - it's Don Easterbrook. Don Easterbrook's projections show 25 years of cooling form ~2000.

I agree that the PDO switch, if it has happened, is not decisive, but I said this in an earlier post.

[icefisher]

Oct 8, 2010 15:57:40 GMT glc said:

There is a difference between a declining PDO and a negative PDO. Since PDO is detrended of average global oceanic trends, as long as it is positive it has a "regional" warming influence even if the warming influence is diminishing from a declining PDO. One should take "regional" with a grain of salt though. It is clear the Pacific exerts a global influence on climate change.

Two points :

First, Cooling takes place during a "declining" PDO. Once it has declined there is very little further cooling. In th 1945 shift most of the cooling had taken place by ~1951. Temperatures after that up until ~1975 were more or less flat.

One might intuitively think that to be the case but you have to understand how it is calculated first.

The global mean SST is subtracted from the north pacific temperatures to arrive at the index.

Thus if the PDO is positive it has a warming influence. While in the positive phase the influence is warming starting with little influence towards warming and as it reaches a peak more influence. Then as it declines it still has a warming influence but it is declining in intensity.

It doesn't matter if its ascending or declining. What matters is purely how much influence and whether the influence is positive or negative.

Oct 8, 2010 15:57:40 GMT glc said:

Second, Don Easterbrook says

The cool phase of PDO is now entrenched and ‘global warming’ (1977-1998) is over

and

No global warming has taken place since 1998 and deepening cooling has occurred during the past several years The reason for global cooling over the past decade is the switch of the Pacific Ocean from its warm mode (where it has been from 1977 to 1998) to its cool mode in 1999.

See myweb.wwu.edu/dbunny/research/global/pdo/pacific-decadal-oscillation.pdf

While I may have misquoted him when I wrote "negative phase" it's clear Easterbrook believes that a switch took place in 1999. Perhaps it did but it's not anywhere near as decisive as the previous switches. Easterbrook obviously wrote his paper around the time the effects of 2008 La Nina were still evident. How else do you explain the "deepening cooling" garbage.

It my opinion that everybody was fooled in 1999. But the PDO was only first accepted in science in 1997 and we don't have a rich body of science on how PDO shifts manifest themselves. But clearly in 1998 the shift occurred and by 2002 it looked to be firmly in place except for it happened on the 25th anniversary about 7 years earlier than the previous switches.

7 years is an interesting figure because I think 7 years is roughly the heat storage capacity of the ocean above the thermocline.

After 2002 we had three El Ninos in succession bringing generally warm water to the northern Pacific, generally a positive index and has made it appear the switch people believed occurred in 1998 was something else.

Actually what may have happened and the jury is still out subject to this La Nina episode being extended and deep. Deep it already is but will it be a flash in the pan or will it run for more than a year?

The 2008 La Nina was deep and short. The 2009 El Nino, a post minimum El Nino, was strong and short. Are we now headed to a long term cold PDO? Keep in mind the PDO is immune to a warming trend as the warming trend is subtracted out. So if indeed we see another 3 solar cycle influence starting around 2005 as the minimum took hold the PDO should be exerting a negative influence for the next 27 years. If it ends up flat then I figure maybe 8 tenths warming over the next century from CO2.

If temps decline then something less and the explanation for why it was flat in the last cold cycle was probably due to an active sun rather than CO2.

I wouldn't be surprised if its like a mix of the two.

And finally if the next decade does get .2 to .4 warmer then we don't know much at all about natural variation.

Oct 8, 2010 15:57:40 GMT glc said:

I have a lot of respect for Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen but you can't take the likes of Easterbrook seriously.

Its always been difficult for the establishment to take us Left Coasters seriously. It is anyway up until we spank your buutt.

[glc]

It my opinion that everybody was fooled in 1999.

Seems like Don Easterbrook is still being fooled. His paper was written in 2008 at the earliest.

But the PDO was only first accepted in science in 1997 and we don't have a rich body of science on how PDO shifts manifest themselves. But clearly in 1998 the shift occurred and by 2002 it looked to be firmly in place except for it happened on the 25th anniversary about 7 years earlier than the previous switches.

Perhaps Professor Easterbrook should be more cautious with his assertions.

It doesn't matter if its ascending or declining. What matters is purely how much influence and whether the influence is positive or negative.

Quite, but tell that to Easterbrook (and Joe D'aleo) - not me. It is they who have done an analysis using a combination of the PDO+AMO.

wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/30/am....ph-says-it-all/

They obviously think they've found something

[gwaarin]

Are you having trouble following the discussion? It's not me that is saying that the PDO has switched modes - it's Don Easterbrook. Don Easterbrook's projections show 25 years of cooling form ~2000.

Nope, not having a hard time following. I've just seen too many people downplaying the second most powerful climate drivers next to the sun.

Oceanic Oscillations along with the sun are directly responsible for climate. The Antarctic Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation, and the Arctic Oscillation to name four major ones.

The PDO is currently in it's cool phase.
The AO is currently positive but declining toward negative - If it goes hard negative like last winter with a negative PDO we will have a brutal Northern Hemispherical winter.
The NAO is currently positive which is declining toward negative. This in conjuction with a cool phase PDO and a negative AO will cause a trifecta of sorts for setting up an incredibly harsh Northern Hemispherical winter.
Lastly, the AAO just switched to negative, but this oscillation will have little affect on the Northern Hemisphere.

www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index.html
www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/aao/aao_index.html

www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao_index.html

[socold]

The PDO index has declined in recent decades though, therefore should it not have had a cooling effect?

[magellan]

Oct 8, 2010 23:37:17 GMT glc said:

It my opinion that everybody was fooled in 1999.

Seems like Don Easterbrook is still being fooled. His paper was written in 2008 at the earliest.

But the PDO was only first accepted in science in 1997 and we don't have a rich body of science on how PDO shifts manifest themselves. But clearly in 1998 the shift occurred and by 2002 it looked to be firmly in place except for it happened on the 25th anniversary about 7 years earlier than the previous switches.

Perhaps Professor Easterbrook should be more cautious with his assertions.

It doesn't matter if its ascending or declining. What matters is purely how much influence and whether the influence is positive or negative.

Quite, but tell that to Easterbrook (and Joe D'aleo) - not me. It is they who have done an analysis using a combination of the PDO+AMO.

wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/30/am....ph-says-it-all/

They obviously think they've found something

Perhaps Professor Easterbrook should be more cautious with his assertions.

Perhaps he should take lessons from Dr. James Hansen, Kevin Trenberth and the rest of the gang. But at least his, as is Scafetta's, is testable unlike those pimping AGW where no matter what happens, it's never wrong.

[magellan]

Oct 9, 2010 1:51:17 GMT socold said:

The PDO index has declined in recent decades though, therefore should it not have had a cooling effect?

bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/08/introduction-to-enso-amo-and-pdo-part-1.html

[gwaarin]

Oct 9, 2010 1:51:17 GMT socold said:

The PDO index has declined in recent decades though, therefore should it not have had a cooling effect?

No, the PDO has mostly been warm for the past 30 years or so. The last decadal time period the PDO was mostly cool was 1944-1976. Which coincidentally enough, was when talk was about a coming ice age.

[glc]

Oct 9, 2010 0:48:24 GMT gwaarin said:

Are you having trouble following the discussion? It's not me that is saying that the PDO has switched modes - it's Don Easterbrook. Don Easterbrook's projections show 25 years of cooling form ~2000.

Nope, not having a hard time following. I've just seen too many people downplaying the second most powerful climate drivers next to the sun.

Oceanic Oscillations along with the sun are directly responsible for climate. The Antarctic Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation, and the Arctic Oscillation to name four major ones.

The PDO is currently in it's cool phase.
The AO is currently positive but declining toward negative - If it goes hard negative like last winter with a negative PDO we will have a brutal Northern Hemispherical winter.
The NAO is currently positive which is declining toward negative. This in conjuction with a cool phase PDO and a negative AO will cause a trifecta of sorts for setting up an incredibly harsh Northern Hemispherical winter.
Lastly, the AAO just switched to negative, but this oscillation will have little affect on the Northern Hemisphere.

www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index.html
www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/aao/aao_index.html

www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao_index.html

Even when you consider all the ocean factors there is still an underlying warming trend.

You say

The AO is currently positive but declining toward negative - If it goes hard negative like last winter with a negative PDO we will have a brutal Northern Hemispherical winter.

The AO was negative last winter and it was cold in some parts of the Northern Hemisphere, e.g. the UK. But the NH as a whole was very warm. UAH anomalies for Jan-Mar in the NH were the highest on record.

Many of the climate drivers you mention just shift heat around so that one place gets warmer while another gets colder. None of them (apart from the sun) can alter the global energy balance so none can warm (or cool) the planet on a global scale.

There are ocean cycles in the atlantic and the pacific which mean the oceans release less (or more) heat into the atmosphere and this will be reflected in the surface and tropsophere temperature measurements but, during these parts of the cycle, it's likely that more heat will be retained in the oceans which will eventually be released in a later phase.

In a nutshell: global "heat storage" is dependent on the balance between incoming energy from the sun and outgoing LW energy from the surface and atmosphere, i.e.

If energy_in = energy_out then global (not regional) temperatures will remain stable. Solar activity (TSI) determines the energy_in while GHGs moderate the energy_out. If energy_out is reduced then the earth will need to warm in order to restore the energy balance. The observed changes in TSI are too small to explain the temperature increases over the past century so, while ocean cycle factors might explain some of the warming trend, we can only assume that the increase in ghgs has also contributed to the warming.

That might change if a mechanism is discovered which shows that solar variability amplifies the TSI effect in some way.

[nautonnier]

Oct 9, 2010 9:32:02 GMT glc said:

Oct 9, 2010 0:48:24 GMT gwaarin said:

Are you having trouble following the discussion? It's not me that is saying that the PDO has switched modes - it's Don Easterbrook. Don Easterbrook's projections show 25 years of cooling form ~2000.

Nope, not having a hard time following. I've just seen too many people downplaying the second most powerful climate drivers next to the sun.

Oceanic Oscillations along with the sun are directly responsible for climate. The Antarctic Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation, and the Arctic Oscillation to name four major ones.

The PDO is currently in it's cool phase.
The AO is currently positive but declining toward negative - If it goes hard negative like last winter with a negative PDO we will have a brutal Northern Hemispherical winter.
The NAO is currently positive which is declining toward negative. This in conjuction with a cool phase PDO and a negative AO will cause a trifecta of sorts for setting up an incredibly harsh Northern Hemispherical winter.
Lastly, the AAO just switched to negative, but this oscillation will have little affect on the Northern Hemisphere.

www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index.html
www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/aao/aao_index.html

www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao_index.html

Even when you consider all the ocean factors there is still an underlying warming trend.

You say

The AO is currently positive but declining toward negative - If it goes hard negative like last winter with a negative PDO we will have a brutal Northern Hemispherical winter.

The AO was negative last winter and it was cold in some parts of the Northern Hemisphere, e.g. the UK. But the NH as a whole was very warm. UAH anomalies for Jan-Mar in the NH were the highest on record.

Many of the climate drivers you mention just shift heat around so that one place gets warmer while another gets colder. None of them (apart from the sun) can alter the global energy balance so none can warm (or cool) the planet on a global scale.

There are ocean cycles in the atlantic and the pacific which mean the oceans release less (or more) heat into the atmosphere and this will be reflected in the surface and tropsophere temperature measurements but, during these parts of the cycle, it's likely that more heat will be retained in the oceans which will eventually be released in a later phase.

In a nutshell: global "heat storage" is dependent on the balance between incoming energy from the sun and outgoing LW energy from the surface and atmosphere, i.e.

If energy_in = energy_out then global (not regional) temperatures will remain stable. Solar activity (TSI) determines the energy_in while GHGs moderate the energy_out. If energy_out is reduced then the earth will need to warm in order to restore the energy balance. The observed changes in TSI are too small to explain the temperature increases over the past century so, while ocean cycle factors might explain some of the warming trend, we can only assume that the increase in ghgs has also contributed to the warming.

That might change if a mechanism is discovered which shows that solar variability amplifies the TSI effect in some way.

And the logic is that as nothing else can be thought of as a reason for the claimed 'underlying warming trend', it must be CO₂ that is causing it even though the underlying warming trend does not match what the multiple climate models says it should be if CO₂ was the cause.

So a lot more heat should have been trapped in the Earth ocean and atmosphere systems. The atmosphere holds very little heat compared to the oceans (the top 3 feet or so of the oceans hold more heat than the entire atmosphere).

This is the reason for the where is the 'missing heat' questions that are the reason for this thread - "Where's the Heat, Cooling Oceans". As the oceans appear to have started cooling after a long period of warming. This cannot happen if the CO₂ hypothesis is correct. Heat is either trapped by the CO₂ or it is not - it cannot just disappear - so how did the heat from the oceans escape? How did it leave the Earth? if it is still there - where is it?

I say the oceans appear to have started cooling as there have been variances in the past although the CO₂ levels were lower then - and the current observations from the global and hugely expensive ARGO float system are not being released by NOAA. A short period of observations from ARGO 2003 to 2008 showed cooling but then research access to the data seems to have been denied. This is despite the data being public property as the entire system including the researchers running it is funded from public taxation.



If the cooling of the oceans were to have continued cooling at the rate from the early ARGO figures, then some claim that the "AGW due to CO₂ emissions" hypothesis would be falsified.

Without the ARGO metrics everyone is guessing. However, the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) based on satellite recording of Outgoing Long-wave Radiation (OLR) seems also to have shown figures that do not match those of the AGW due to CO₂ emissions hypothesis but which support the apparent downward trend in ocean heat content.

Until better observational metrics are obtained or released we are left with an AGW hypothesis based on modeled assumptions, assertions and postulations.

[glc]

And the logic is that as nothing else can be thought of as a reason for the claimed 'underlying warming trend', it must be CO2 that is causing it even though the underlying warming trend does not match what the multiple climate models says it should be if CO2 was the cause.

I't a bit more than "nothing else so it must be CO2". There is sound physics to back up the thinking that CO2 is a likely contributor. It is an IR absorbing gas. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere will impede the flow of LW radiation to space. It is, by far, the most convincing explanation for the 20th century "underlying" warming trend. Far more convincing than the airy fairy, arm waving suggestions that this or that may be responsible.

In the 1980s some climate scientists predicted that global temperatures would increase and that summer ice extent in the arctic would decrease. Result: Global temperatures increased and summer ice extent decreased. Perhaps it was coincidence - maybe they were just lucky, but I don't know of any solar theorists in the 1980s who predicted warming because of higher solar activity. Plenty have tried to fit solar activity to temperature since using TSI, sunspots, cycle lengths and just about every combination of filters imaginable. Result: They've all fallen apart under close analysis.

[duwayne]

Oct 9, 2010 1:51:17 GMT socold said:

The PDO index has declined in recent decades though, therefore should it not have had a cooling effect?

The cumulative annual PDO values for 1977-2006 is 13.1. For 1948-1976 the value is -19.1. For 1918-1947 the value is 9.4.

For 2007-2009 the cumulative PDO value is -2.1 and based on recent months the PDO will be negative again this year as the Ocean Current down leg begins.

The cumulative ENSO values show a similar pattern over the 60-year cycle as do other Ocean Current measurements.

These 30-year periods were chosen because they coincide with the up and down legs of the 60-year Global Temperature cycle which shows up clearly in a periodogram covering the 160-year Hadcrut Global Temperature record.

I predict the IPCC will "discover" the natural Ocean Current Cycle in their next assessment since some explanation will be necessary to show why Global Temperatures are now flat despite increases in CO2. They might even "detect" that it's a 60-year cycle but that's not likely since they would then be forced to recognize that temperatures are unlikely to go up in the next 25 years.

[nautonnier]

Oct 9, 2010 13:24:40 GMT glc said:

And the logic is that as nothing else can be thought of as a reason for the claimed 'underlying warming trend', it must be CO2 that is causing it even though the underlying warming trend does not match what the multiple climate models says it should be if CO2 was the cause.

I't a bit more than "nothing else so it must be CO2". There is sound physics to back up the thinking that CO2 is a likely contributor. It is an IR absorbing gas. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere will impede the flow of LW radiation to space. It is, by far, the most convincing explanation for the 20th century "underlying" warming trend. Far more convincing than the airy fairy, arm waving suggestions that this or that may be responsible.

In the 1980s some climate scientists predicted that global temperatures would increase and that summer ice extent in the arctic would decrease. Result: Global temperatures increased and summer ice extent decreased. Perhaps it was coincidence - maybe they were just lucky, but I don't know of any solar theorists in the 1980s who predicted warming because of higher solar activity. Plenty have tried to fit solar activity to temperature since using TSI, sunspots, cycle lengths and just about every combination of filters imaginable. Result: They've all fallen apart under close analysis.

Eddy's research from the 70's actually does that. It links quiet Sun to the cold weather period you say didn't exist the Maunder Minimum - and the converse is rather obviously that an active sun will lead to warming out of those cold periods.

You may disagree with it - but you cannot say you "don't know of any solar theorists in the 1980s who predicted warming because of higher solar activity".

"3. The Maunder Minimum and Climate Change

While there has not been great resistance to Eddy's arguments for a lull in solar magnetic activity during the Maunder Minimum, one of the main reasons why his ideas caught the imagination is more contentious. He claimed that the Maunder Minimum coincided in time with an era of colder weather, and that by implication the absence of magnetic activity was accompanied by a net fall in the total radiative output of the Sun. An implicit corollary is that in the intervening period the radiative output has been increasing, with a consequent warming of the Earth. This basic idea has been taken up by a section of the solar physics community, and a good recent summary of the evidence for the proposition that solar variability is an agent, if not the main agent, of the perceived recent climate change associated with global warming, is given in Hoyt & Schatten (1997)."

www.eso.org/sci/libraries/lisa3/beckmanj.html

[icefisher]

Oct 9, 2010 9:32:02 GMT glc said:

Many of the climate drivers you mention just shift heat around so that one place gets warmer while another gets colder. None of them (apart from the sun) can alter the global energy balance so none can warm (or cool) the planet on a global scale.

Is that true? Since radiation is a 4th power of temperature if you change the distribution of heat you directly affect the rate of radiation.

For example. If you have a base 10 and it is distributed 5 and 5, the fourth power of 5 times 2 equals 1250. If you change the distribution to 6 and 4 the sum of the 4th powers rises to 1552. That would seem to effect the global energy balance.

Oct 9, 2010 9:32:02 GMT glc said:

There are ocean cycles in the atlantic and the pacific which mean the oceans release less (or more) heat into the atmosphere and this will be reflected in the surface and tropsophere temperature measurements but, during these parts of the cycle, it's likely that more heat will be retained in the oceans which will eventually be released in a later phase.

More heat retained? What causes less heat to be retained like in the reducing OHC detected by ARGO since 2003? Did CO2 take a vacation?

[icefisher]

Oct 9, 2010 13:24:40 GMT glc said:

Plenty have tried to fit solar activity to temperature since using TSI, sunspots, cycle lengths and just about every combination of filters imaginable. Result: They've all fallen apart under close analysis.

They "all" have fallen apart under close analysis? That is a rather grandiose statement. I think you have only ever pointed out one falling apart the "cycle length" one. How did that grow to every analysis?