It’s the usual story. It’s the beginning of the year and the statistics of the previous year are hurriedly collected to tell the story of the ongoing climate crisis.
First off, we have the oceans which, according to some, are living up to the apocalyptic narrative better than the atmosphere.
The atmosphere is complicated, subjected to natural variabilities, that make the temperature increase open to too much interpretation.
The oceans, however, are far more important than the air as they absorb most of the anthropogenic excess heat.
Looking at the literature reveals no one knows just how much excess heat (created in the atmosphere) it mops up or indeed exactly how or where it does it. Some say it is 60% which is a bit on the low side, most say 90% or 93%.
The real figure is unknown though it should be noted that a few percent errors translate to a lot of energy, about the same amount that is causing all the concern.
On 14 January the Guardian had the headline, “Ocean temperatures hit record high as the rate of heating accelerates.” The study that reached this conclusion was published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.
It’s a badly written paper full of self-justifying statements and unwarranted assumptions that should have been stripped-out by the editor.
Essentially there is only one new bit of information in the paper – the Ocean Heat Content (OHC) for 2019 as calculated by the Chinese Academy of Science using a newish technique that fills in places (and there are a lot of them) where there is no temperature data, so one should be careful analyzing the output of their model.
Curiously, the paper was submitted on 26 December, before 2019 was over. It was revised on 6 January and accepted three days later, perhaps that short time period explains the typos in the paper.
They find that the OHC for 2019 was (upper 2000m) 228 +/- 4 ZettaJoules above the 1981-2010 average and 25 +/- ZJ above 2018. I do wish people would stop using ZettaJoules.
They are cumbersome and awkward. In my view, all such measurements and calculations should be simpler and also expressed in terms of temperature increases and in energy increase per square meter for the whole Earth’s surface and for the ocean surface.
This way the data is so much easier to compare. It should also be mandatory to include error estimates. The data used in the paper is available but is obscure and hidden away.
The authors find, unlike many other studies, that there has been an almost perfect linear increase on OHC since about 1986. It is remarkable that the oceans have been able to do this.
As one can see from their other figures the increase in OHC has not been uniform globally. The heating has been patchy, mainly the Arctic and the eastern seaboards of continents.
How these warming regions, separated by vast areas that have not warmed much or even cooled, have maintained the coherence of a global linear trend of such precision is a wonder indeed!
The authors say in the paper, “With these newly available IAP data, a ranking of the warmest years since (the) 1950s is now possible.”
Actually, it was possible last year and in the years before that. It’s another piece of unscientific hype that should have been taken out of this paper.
The bottom line of this paper is that according to the authors using this relatively new technique they have of replacing no temperature with synthetic data the world’s oceans (parts of them) have increased in temperature by less than 0.1 degrees C in 60 years.
As for the exquisite linear trend they find since 1986 compare this claim with recent data obtained solely by the Argo Array data set which has the benefit of much better statistical coherence.
If you do, you will get a more realistic picture of what is actually happening.
Read more at GWPF
Give me a few dozen datum points, and a swag full of money, I’ll produce watever result the Warmists want!
Needed: More Cold Water!
Climate Alarmism is a politically based ploy and their weak proofs and arguments are just baseless LIES. Science tells us so. Problem is they have been able to establish a misinformed number of acolytes. Climate Activists WHO DO BELIEVE the Climate Alarmism propaganda without really understand or knowing why.
Climate Alarmism’s continued manipulation of a wide variety of seemingly related data sets as proof has been shown time and again to be false that gets complicit media promotion on a daily basis. There have been no serious journalistic investigative efforts from the MAJOR MEDIA at large with regard to comparative evaluation of KNOWN science or even basic science fact checking to claims made in Climate Alarmism propaganda.
And yes.
“The atmosphere is complicated, subjected to natural variabilities that make the temperature increase open to too much interpretation.” IF one ignores basic physics.
“The oceans, however, are far more important than the air as they absorb most of the anthropogenic excess heat.” ARE they??? Do they??? Or is this just “too much of a political interpretation”… again!!!
Well, WHAT IF… the reality of the Climate Alarmist’s belief is actually 180 degrees out of phase with what is naturally occurring with Earth’s climate??? Haven’t we been told the Earth’s core has been cooling for MILLIONS OF YEARS?? BILLIONS even!!
So why isn’t the Earth frozen now or getting colder by degrees or at least some measurable percentage of a degree per year. If Earth’s core has been cooling for MILLIONS OF YEARS would it be a reasonable interpretation to expect some long term baseline cooling trend to have been established by now….??
Maybe not. “The amount of heat caused by radiation at the Earth’s core is almost the same as the total heat measured emanating from the Earth.”
Which brings into question claims that:
• There are major uncertainties in our understanding of the way heat is transported from the ocean surface to the depths.
And:
• Almost all of the ocean warming is coming from one region, 30°–50°S, in the Pacific Ocean.
Read more at GWPF
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2019/11/Cold-Water-Whitehouse.pdf
The subduction of the Indian oceanic plate beneath the Eurasian continental plate formed the volcanic arc in western Indonesia, one of the most seismically active areas on the planet with a long history of powerful eruptions and earthquakes.
Might this help explain why “Almost all of the ocean warming is coming from one region, 30°–50°S, in the Pacific Ocean.”???
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Indonesia
Active subduction also makes the Philippines one of the most hazard-prone regions on Earth, which is frequently affected by volcanic activities, earthquakes and tsunami.
Might this help explain why “Almost all of the ocean warming is coming from one region, 30°–50°S, in the Pacific Ocean.”???
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subduction_tectonics_of_the_Philippines
Additionally, descent of the dense iron-rich material that makes up the core of the planet to the center would produce heating on the order of 2,000 kelvins (about 3,000 degrees F). The magnitude of the third main source of heat–radioactive heating–is uncertain. The precise abundances of radioactive elements (primarily potassium, uranium and thorium) are poorly known in the deep earth.
In sum, there was no shortage of heat in the early earth, and the planet’s INABILITY to cool off quickly results in the continued high temperatures of the Earth’s interior. In effect, not only do the earth’s plates act as a blanket on the interior, but not even convective heat transport in the solid mantle provides a particularly efficient mechanism for heat loss. The planet does lose some heat through the processes that drive PLATE TECTONICS, especially at mid-ocean ridges.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-the-earths-core-so/
In sum… “For all this, however, Marone says, the vast majority of the heat in Earth’s interior—up to 90 percent—is fueled by the decaying of radioactive isotopes like Potassium 40, Uranium 238, 235, and Thorium 232 contained within the mantle. These isotopes radiate heat as they shed excess energy and move toward stability. “The amount of heat caused by this radiation is almost the same as the total heat measured emanating from the Earth.””
“The amount of heat caused by this radiation is almost the same as the total heat measured emanating from the Earth.””
Perhaps another interpretation Is that it is Earth’s unique nuclear core is the miracle that makes US possible in our galaxy? I don’t know.
Correction…
Perhaps another interpretation is that: Earth’s unique nuclear core is THE miracle that makes LIFE possible in this region of our galaxy? I don’t know.
In on line debates when alarmist couldn’t prove their point about warming with atmospheric data they have turned to ocean temperatures as the definitive proof that global warming was happening. This article and the excellent comments show that proof doesn’t exist.
Usual nonsense. Oceans are heated by sunlight shining directly into the water. most of this heating comes from visible light. IR is absorbed at the very surface and contributes to evaporation. Air cannot heat the ocean as over most of the ocean the air temperature at surface is colder than the water. Argos buoys show that seasonal changes dont go below 50 m. Energy transfer to depth cannot occur because water increases in density with depth. Stashing heat into the ocean is the latest Warmista fabrication to cover up the pause since 1999.
Who knowns how much heat is generated geothermally? It is enormous. There are literally thousands of under-ice and under water vents spewing heat, various chemical elements and gases into the oceans 24 hours a day, per year. Principally, under the Greenland Ice Sheet, where is has been mapped, but no one knows the extent. This not man-made and can’t be tied to the IPCC Atmospheric (CO2) Warming Narrative. The same thing is occurring in Antarctica where about 138 underwater/ice volcanoes have been discovered. Many are reported to be active. None of this has been recognized. The science has not been settled by a long shot. IPCC was set-up solely to prove that man was responsible for global warming as cover for the real objective of creating a world government. The UN’s view; it is beyond the capability of national governments to solve such problems on their own.Thus, most of the world’s scientific effort has been so directed to that end…that’s where the money is.