Post by missouriboy on Jan 7, 2016 11:14:27 GMT
I searched the site and did not find a thread that was specifically dedicated to the Pacific Ocean and the PDO, so here it is.
In the last couple of days I took the spreadsheets that I created some time ago to look a Argo changes in the Atlantic and
expanded them to handle the greater size of the Pacific and then stepped through the Argo extraction process. There will
probably be some overlap in places to the postings on the North Atlantic Drift thread.
I reconstructed temperature data by longitude between 0 and 2000 meters depth (and subdivisions) for the entire North
Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans. My purpose was to compare temperature changes between both basins over the 2004-15
time period and compare them to the UAH v6.0 temperature anomaly data for the northern hemisphere oceans.
Chart 1 shows that temperature anomalies in the shallowest zone (0-100 m) matches the UAH data for the time period
very closely. Two observations.
First. There is a temperature spike in the 2009-2010 period in all three data sets! We know that the 2009-10 El Nino is
reflected in the UAH data set and should be in the North Pacific Argo data set. It is ... but what the heck is that Atlantic
spike?
Second. All three data sets show a downward trend in anomalies from 2004-09 (away from SC23 peak) and after the spike
an upward trend in anomalies to 2015 (toward SC24 peaks of 2014-15). Are these indicative of changes in solar heating of
the upper ocean? The Atlantic rebound is not as dramatic as the Pacific. Note that these changes also show up in the
basin and depth-zone-specific charts (2 & 3 below).
The black line on charts 2 and 3 show the cumulative change from 2004 for the whole basin between 0 and 2000 meters.
These show that there has been very little temperature change in either basin ... essentially in agreement with the pause
shown in the satellite data. The N. Pacific increased overall by about 0.03 C by 2015. The N. Atlantic decreased by about
-0.05 C in the same period. Since the Pacific is 2.7 times the size of the Atlantic, the two-basin change was likely slightly
positive, but this may be within the Argo error range.
Note how closely the peaks and dips of the 3 non-overlapping depth zones fit. Either whatever drives these temperature
changes reaches to great depth ... OR ... the Argo-specific processing, which creates the surfaces from which I pull this
data, may have some sampling overlap. I'm not sure if this is a serious issue or not.
The large spike in the Pacific in 2015 is, of course, the current El Nino. Current temperature declines in the N. Atlantic are also
visible. Correction to last sentence ... it is partially the current El Nino, with the other part being the warm surface waters
that have accumulated off of western North America, aka 'the Blob'. Since the El Nino zone straddles the equator only part
of its warm waters are captured in the North Pacific tallies.
ARGO CREDIT: I now use Global Argo Marine Atlas so much that I forget to give a formal credit ... but I always say 'Argo'
and that is my default credit. So for any government admin guys or political types that may wander through our pages
here ... I want you to know that, in my humble opinion, ARGO AND ITS DATA ARE THE BEST THING SINCE SLICED CHEESE.
PLEASE KEEP THEM FUNDED ALONG WITH DR ROY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA. They help shine a light in an
otherwise wasted IPCC World. Amen.
In the last couple of days I took the spreadsheets that I created some time ago to look a Argo changes in the Atlantic and
expanded them to handle the greater size of the Pacific and then stepped through the Argo extraction process. There will
probably be some overlap in places to the postings on the North Atlantic Drift thread.
I reconstructed temperature data by longitude between 0 and 2000 meters depth (and subdivisions) for the entire North
Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans. My purpose was to compare temperature changes between both basins over the 2004-15
time period and compare them to the UAH v6.0 temperature anomaly data for the northern hemisphere oceans.
Chart 1 shows that temperature anomalies in the shallowest zone (0-100 m) matches the UAH data for the time period
very closely. Two observations.
First. There is a temperature spike in the 2009-2010 period in all three data sets! We know that the 2009-10 El Nino is
reflected in the UAH data set and should be in the North Pacific Argo data set. It is ... but what the heck is that Atlantic
spike?
Second. All three data sets show a downward trend in anomalies from 2004-09 (away from SC23 peak) and after the spike
an upward trend in anomalies to 2015 (toward SC24 peaks of 2014-15). Are these indicative of changes in solar heating of
the upper ocean? The Atlantic rebound is not as dramatic as the Pacific. Note that these changes also show up in the
basin and depth-zone-specific charts (2 & 3 below).
The black line on charts 2 and 3 show the cumulative change from 2004 for the whole basin between 0 and 2000 meters.
These show that there has been very little temperature change in either basin ... essentially in agreement with the pause
shown in the satellite data. The N. Pacific increased overall by about 0.03 C by 2015. The N. Atlantic decreased by about
-0.05 C in the same period. Since the Pacific is 2.7 times the size of the Atlantic, the two-basin change was likely slightly
positive, but this may be within the Argo error range.
Note how closely the peaks and dips of the 3 non-overlapping depth zones fit. Either whatever drives these temperature
changes reaches to great depth ... OR ... the Argo-specific processing, which creates the surfaces from which I pull this
data, may have some sampling overlap. I'm not sure if this is a serious issue or not.
The large spike in the Pacific in 2015 is, of course, the current El Nino. Current temperature declines in the N. Atlantic are also
visible. Correction to last sentence ... it is partially the current El Nino, with the other part being the warm surface waters
that have accumulated off of western North America, aka 'the Blob'. Since the El Nino zone straddles the equator only part
of its warm waters are captured in the North Pacific tallies.
ARGO CREDIT: I now use Global Argo Marine Atlas so much that I forget to give a formal credit ... but I always say 'Argo'
and that is my default credit. So for any government admin guys or political types that may wander through our pages
here ... I want you to know that, in my humble opinion, ARGO AND ITS DATA ARE THE BEST THING SINCE SLICED CHEESE.
PLEASE KEEP THEM FUNDED ALONG WITH DR ROY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA. They help shine a light in an
otherwise wasted IPCC World. Amen.