2014 Global Temperatures

[The_Global_Warmer]

You are now going onto a whole new tangent. Nothing is beng "Rationalized". You asked if it "mattered" whether we warm slowly or not and basically said it didn't matter what the rate of warming was.

 

I said it did matter because we can adapt much better to a slower warming rate.

 

 

Talking about how much we should blame ourselves and feel terrible is completely irrelevant to the topic of TCR or how well we adapt. Go start a thread in the politics forum if you want to do that.

 

Fair enough.  You are right about it being easier to adapt. That is logical.  It doesn't change that this is still a 100% man made problem. Every single thing good or bad that comes form this is our fault that is inescapable. 

[tacoman25]

Fair enough.  You are right about it being easier to adapt. That is logical.  It doesn't change that this is still a 100% man made problem. Every single thing good or bad that comes form this is our fault that is inescapable. 

 

This is the driving force behind the modern hubris of climate change. It's not just about the science, it's about environmentalism/human guilt in relationship to nature.

 

This is why some have compared it to a religious movement. Certainly matches the dogma demonstrated from time to time.

[ORH_wxman]

This is the driving force behind the modern hubris of climate change. It's not just about the science of climate change, it's about environmentalism/human guilt in relationship to nature.

 

This is why some have compared it to a religious movement. Certainly matches the dogma demonstrated from time to time.

 

 

It really needs to be eliminated from objective science discussion. It polarizes a gray topic into black/white unnecessarily.

 

It's fine if we are in a moral/ethics discussion, but it contributes nothing to figuring out the TCR/ECS of our climate or other important/significant data. The climate doesn't care if the CO2 is manmade or not.

 

These questions are important to be answered for actually making steps toward policy action. But the politics seems to too often drive narrative before the science does.

[nflwxman]

I could be wrong, but I suspect we're missing a larger, more singular forcing or feedback...I'm just not sure what it is. I think we can rule out solar too, as it wasn't until the 40s/50s when the Sun got active..and by that time the temperature was cooling again. Even if all the stars aligned to produce the 1910-1945 warming (statistically unlikely), current simulations still tend to under-sell it.

Given the GISP2 cores reveal a slew of rapid warmings/coolings on a periodic basis, to me it suggests strong positive feedbacks are at work on an overlapping scale, and are probably internal in nature.

 

We generally know that a combination of GHGs, Low Volcanic Activity, Internal Variability, and some measurement bias was responsible for the early 20th century warming.  

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2000JD000028/abstract

 

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1005307009726

 

 

However, one does not have to consider the early 20th century warming when looking at the difference in temperature between postindustrial and present times.  Why?  Well, internal and solar forcing agents that caused the early 20th century warming are generally not a factor in present times.  Therefore, one would have expected the earth to cool back to it's pre-20th century state without contributions from GHGs and related positive feedbacks.  GhGs have forced the climate about 0.8C above preindustrial estimates, regardless of the early 20th century warming period.

 

Feedbacks can work in a very slow fashion.  The water vapor feedback is the greatest short term driver and it's scientifically proven and observed.  Remember, Specific Humidity levels have risen world wide ~4% since the early 1900s.

[Isotherm]

We know that without feedbacks, Carbon Dioxide causes about a 3.7 w/m^2 forcing per doubling, and that leads to about a 1.1 Degree C warming, since Earth radiates at a rate of 3.3 w/m^2/Degree C increase without any feedbacks. However there is a good amount of evidence that net feedbacks are weakly to strongly positive.. somewhere along the 1.5-4.5 K range. The question is where the exact ECS lies. Many papers recently have been coming in with a sensitivity between 1.5-2.5 K, but those sensitivities might be sensitive to the recent decadal slowdown in surface temperature increase. Other papers are in the 1.5-2.5 K range by constraining paleoclimate sensitivity. Paleoclimate is a good way we can constrain ECS to 1.5-4.5 K, since we have a good idea as to what caused past deglaciation cycles. 

 

 

An objective overview of scientific literature shows that there's a good chance that global climate models are incorrectly assigning positive feedbacks when in reality some are negative. Furthermore, numerous studies suggest that estimated climate sensitivity range has gradually been revised downward to account for the lack of global temperature response to rapidly increased CO2 forcing. In fact, many peer reviewed studies suggest ECS's as low as 0.1K to 1.0K.

 

In my view, many questions will be answered within the next decade to 15 years with regards to the importance of various forcing mechanisms in driving global surface temperatures. One of the issues is that there's a lag effect with some forcings, further complicating matters. There's strong evidence in the literature that a large percentage of the 1900-1940 warming was due to solar variations (e.g. solar corpuscular activity, solar wind, etc.) and there's clearly a more obscure, solar forcing mechanism in place beyond TSI variations (there could be a lag effect here).

 

Overall, I would say with confidence that the IPCC's range of climate sensitive is most likely too high, and initial estimates of up to 4.5C for the ECS were much, much overdone. Of course, time tells all, but with each passing year that does not warm over the 2000-2014 average, I believe more and more scientific papers will be published lowering the ECS and decreasing the importance of CO2 in driving surface temperatures.

[Isotherm]

We generally know that a combination of GHGs, Low Volcanic Activity, Internal Variability, and some measurement bias was responsible for the early 20th century warming.  

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2000JD000028/abstract

 

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1005307009726

 

 

  Why?  Well, internal and solar forcing agents that caused the early 20th century warming are generally not a factor in present times.  

 

 

Can you explain why you believe solar forcing was a factor in global temperatures 100 years ago yet isn't now? Because that makes no logical sense to me. I could see if you were arguing the Sun is less important when compared to GHG forcing, but to say solar forcing is virtually unrelated to present climate is extremely bold in my view.

[nflwxman]

Can you explain why you believe solar forcing was a factor in global temperatures 100 years ago yet isn't now? Because that makes no logical sense to me. I could see if you were arguing the Sun is less important when compared to GHG forcing, but to say solar forcing is virtually unrelated to present climate is extremely bold in my view.

Sure, it's related t

 

 

Sure, solar activity always has an impact on climate.  But if anything, the last 12-13 years has seen a precipitous decline in total solar radiance.   In fact, the 11 yr average radiance peaked around 1960 and has dropped since then.  The sun would now be considered a "negative forcing" from the stand point that it's below the long term average.  My comment before was referring to the fact that the sun is no longer a "positive" climate forcing as it was in the early 20th century. 

[nflwxman]

An objective overview of scientific literature shows that there's a good chance that global climate models are incorrectly assigning positive feedbacks when in reality some are negative. Furthermore, numerous studies suggest that estimated climate sensitivity range has gradually been revised downward to account for the lack of global temperature response to rapidly increased CO2 forcing. In fact, many peer reviewed studies suggest ECS's as low as 0.1K to 1.0K.

 

In my view, many questions will be answered within the next decade to 15 years with regards to the importance of various forcing mechanisms in driving global surface temperatures. One of the issues is that there's a lag effect with some forcings, further complicating matters. There's strong evidence in the literature that a large percentage of the 1900-1940 warming was due to solar variations (e.g. solar corpuscular activity, solar wind, etc.) and there's clearly a more obscure, solar forcing mechanism in place beyond TSI variations (there could be a lag effect here).

 

Overall, I would say with confidence that the IPCC's range of climate sensitive is most likely too high, and initial estimates of up to 4.5C for the ECS were much, much overdone. Of course, time tells all, but with each passing year that does not warm over the 2000-2014 average, I believe more and more scientific papers will be published lowering the ECS and decreasing the importance of CO2 in driving surface temperatures.

The empirical observations show no evidence for that low of a climate sensitivity.  If there is a peer reviewed paper that shows that, I'd love to see it.  Remember, it doesn't matter now that the early 20th century warming was caused primarily by solar activity.  It's proven that solar forcing has reversed a long ways back, and the temperature has not dropped.  This reinforces the fact that C02 is by far, the main climate driver presently.

[Snow_Miser]

The long term trend has been accelerating, consistent with an accelerating trend upward in anthropogenic forcing. Superimposed on that long term trend is multidecadal natural variability. 

 

 

 

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00382-011-1128-8

 

"The shape of the secular trend and rather globally-uniform spatial pattern associated with it are both suggestive of a response to the buildup of well-mixed greenhouse gases. In contrast, the multidecadal variability tends to be concentrated over the extratropical Northern Hemisphere and particularly over the North Atlantic, suggestive of a possible link to low frequency variations in the strength of the thermohaline circulation."

 

http://www.pnas.org/content/106/38/16120.abstract

 

"Here we present a technique that objectively identifies the component of inter-decadal global mean surface temperature attributable to natural long-term climate variability. Removal of that hidden variability from the actual observed global mean surface temperature record delineates the externally forced climate signal, which is monotonic, accelerating warming during the 20th century."

 

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-011-0068-y

 

"There is no evidence to support the idea that the observed rise in global temperatures are a natural fluctuation which will reverse in the near future."

[ORH_wxman]

The empirical observations show no evidence for that low of a climate sensitivity.  If there is a peer reviewed paper that shows that, I'd love to see it.  Remember, it doesn't matter now that the early 20th century warming was caused primarily by solar activity.  It's proven that solar forcing has reversed a long ways back, and the temperature has not dropped.  This reinforces the fact that C02 is by far, the main climate driver presently.

 

It definitely matters what caused that warming. It if was something like lack of volcanism and ENSO/AMO more than solar, then it changes how we weight the attribution in variability of decadal temperature swings.  

 

There's a lot of assumptions that are made when we try to figure out the attribution of warming since the pre-industrial era. The first is that the temperatures of the 19th century are our equilibrium climate temperatures (are they? We actually don't know this..there's plenty of evidence that we were unusually cold). The second is that internal variability evens out over periods of a century or so...related to assumption #1, but perhaps on a shorter timescale. We don't actually know this either. We seem to know the 11-year solar forcing fairly well, but have little knowledge on the longer term cloud feedbacks of multiple cycles that go above/below average...this may or may not be significant. It is generally assumed to be insignificant in modeling.

 

We try to tune the climate models to some equilibrium state...but the biggest problem is that the climate (even before big CO2) is rarely in equilibrium. The sfc temps are constantly adjusting. This makes it very difficult...especially when you add on that observational data is so poor prior to the middle 19th century on temperatures...and even worse for variables like OHC (pretty bad before the 21st century even). It's no wonder the GCMs are pretty bad.

 

 

It's likely the primary reason why after about 25 years of research since the first IPCC report...our estimates for sensitivty have not gotten any better.

[Snow_Miser]

An objective overview of scientific literature shows that there's a good chance that global climate models are incorrectly assigning positive feedbacks when in reality some are negative. Furthermore, numerous studies suggest that estimated climate sensitivity range has gradually been revised downward to account for the lack of global temperature response to rapidly increased CO2 forcing. In fact, many peer reviewed studies suggest ECS's as low as 0.1K to 1.0K.

 

In my view, many questions will be answered within the next decade to 15 years with regards to the importance of various forcing mechanisms in driving global surface temperatures. One of the issues is that there's a lag effect with some forcings, further complicating matters. There's strong evidence in the literature that a large percentage of the 1900-1940 warming was due to solar variations (e.g. solar corpuscular activity, solar wind, etc.) and there's clearly a more obscure, solar forcing mechanism in place beyond TSI variations (there could be a lag effect here).

 

Overall, I would say with confidence that the IPCC's range of climate sensitive is most likely too high, and initial estimates of up to 4.5C for the ECS were much, much overdone. Of course, time tells all, but with each passing year that does not warm over the 2000-2014 average, I believe more and more scientific papers will be published lowering the ECS and decreasing the importance of CO2 in driving surface temperatures.

 

I don't recall seeing many peer reviewed studies supporting a ECS between 0.1 and 1.0. That would mean that the TCR is even lower than that, and this is incompatible with past climate change. Past deglaciation cycles were initiated through orbital forcing. However, it is clear that such a small forcing cannot explain the large temperature swings observed. Therefore, positive feedback is introduced, through degassing of Carbon Dioxide from the warmer oceans and through other feedbacks. That is how we get a large temperature response to a small forcing, through positive feedback. 

 

http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/Publications/CaillonTermIII.pdf

 

 

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10915.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120405

 

"These observations, together with transient global climate model simulations, support the conclusion that an antiphased hemispheric temperature response to ocean circulation changes superimposed on globally in-phase warming driven by increasing CO2concentrations is an explanation for much of the temperature change at the end of the most recent ice age."

 

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2008JCLI2161.1

 

"Analyses of sensitivity experiments forced with only one external forcing component (greenhouse gases, ice-sheet forcing, or orbital forcing) demonstrate that austral spring insolation changes triggered an early retreat of Southern Ocean sea ice starting around 19–18 ka BP. The associated sea ice–albedo feedback and the subsequent increase of atmospheric CO₂ concentrations helped to further accelerate the deglacial warming in the Southern Hemisphere. Implications for the interpretation of Southern Hemispheric paleoproxy records are discussed."

 

With regard to the lag, there should be an immediate response with Earth's Energy Imbalance if solar variability is mostly responsible for late-20th Century global warming. We don't observe that. We continue to remain in a positive energy imbalance, despite low solar activity as evidenced by continued ocean heat content gain, sea level rise, and through satellite measurements (though satellite measurements admittedly have a larger error margin). This is clear evidence that we do not need 15 years to determine that solar variability is not dominant. We have evidence now. Stratospheric Cooling and the pattern of warming is another factor arguing against solar variability being dominant. 

 

It really also depends on aerosol forcing. If aerosol forcing is low, then that would support a lower climate sensitivity, around the 1.0-2.0 K range. However if aerosol forcing is high, then that would support a very high climate sensitivity, perhaps above 4.5 K. 

 

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00382-012-1585-8

 

[AvantHiatus]

This is the driving force behind the modern hubris of climate change. It's not just about the science, it's about environmentalism/human guilt in relationship to nature.

 

This is why some have compared it to a religious movement. Certainly matches the dogma demonstrated from time to time.

Well, it is either true or it is not. If you subscribe to deep ecology, you will understand why some people feel that way. Nature should be cherished, and quite frankly this should be obvious on a weather forum. I don't think people just wait for snow and then move on, although I bet there are a few. If you like weather, you usually deeply appreciate the Earth and Nature as the two are inherently connected.

[The_Global_Warmer]

Given that global aerosol tracking is scant it's hard to tell.  We know China and India have exploded since the late 1990s in aerosols production. 

 

This not only would cause aerosols to go up again it's over the sub tropics for the most part upwards of 30N or so. 

 

 

This is from 2006.  It looks like ice and desert make it impossible to detect in the aerosol scanning frequency.  Never the less we know from the mid atlantic to the Western Pacific a combo of man made and natural occurring or all Man made if the winds are pulling some of them Westward blanket a huge region where solar forcing is pretty stable at high levels all year. Meaning the effect of the aerosols would be greater on the Earths energy balance here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These regions are starting to work towards cleaning this up.  There will be a rebound effect.  How strong or how much remains to be seen.

 

But China apparently has been cleaning up there act the last few years which coincides with 0-700M OHC rising more abruptly again.  Who knows.

 

[The_Global_Warmer]

Well, it is either true or it is not. If you subscribe to deep ecology, you will understand why some people feel that way. Nature should be cherished, and quite frankly this should be obvious on a weather forum. I don't think people just wait for snow and then move on, although I bet there are a few. If you like weather, you usually deeply appreciate the Earth and Nature as the two are inherently connected.

 

+1000000000.

 

Worrying about nature being defiled by Mans hands being compared to a cult is a joke.

 

In other news global ssta have rebounded from the big drop the NINO fail produced.

 

 

This is with NINO 3-4 showing negative anomalies now.

 

NH stayed the same.  The rise is solely from the SH. 

 

 

 

[nflwxman]

It definitely matters what caused that warming. It if was something like lack of volcanism and ENSO/AMO more than solar, then it changes how we weight the attribution in variability of decadal temperature swings.  

 

There's a lot of assumptions that are made when we try to figure out the attribution of warming since the pre-industrial era. The first is that the temperatures of the 19th century are our equilibrium climate temperatures (are they? We actually don't know this..there's plenty of evidence that we were unusually cold). The second is that internal variability evens out over periods of a century or so...related to assumption #1, but perhaps on a shorter timescale. We don't actually know this either. We seem to know the 11-year solar forcing fairly well, but have little knowledge on the longer term cloud feedbacks of multiple cycles that go above/below average...this may or may not be significant. It is generally assumed to be insignificant in modeling.

 

We try to tune the climate models to some equilibrium state...but the biggest problem is that the climate (even before big CO2) is rarely in equilibrium. The sfc temps are constantly adjusting. This makes it very difficult...especially when you add on that observational data is so poor prior to the middle 19th century on temperatures...and even worse for variables like OHC (pretty bad before the 21st century even). It's no wonder the GCMs are pretty bad.

 

 

It's likely the primary reason why after about 25 years of research since the first IPCC report...our estimates for sensitivty have not gotten any better.

I think you are creating a strawman a bit there.  I did not say it didn't matter for modeling purposes.  I said it does not matter for the following statement:

 

The earth has warmed 0.8 degrees since pre-industrial times.  Most of that warming is likely due to GHGs.   This is in reference to isotherm's claim that the 1910-1940 warming period disproves the impact of GHGs.

 

Again, it's relatively irrelevant that 1910-1940 warmed because of Solar OR lack of volcanic activity.  Both of those forcing have switched and have NOT resulted in cooling- meaning GHGs have primarily forced the climate to our current state.  Those natural forces, because they are transient and ever oscillating, have little impact over a long term trend line (30+ years).

 

As far as the exact amount of feedback and the ultimate ECS in the long term, I agree every period of record should be thoroughly studied to figure out those values.  

[ORH_wxman]

I think you are creating a strawman a bit there.  I did not say it didn't matter for modeling purposes.  I said it does not matter for the following statement:

 

The earth has warmed 0.8 degrees since pre-industrial times.  Most of that warming is likely due to GHGs.  

 

Again, it's relatively irrelevant that 1910-1940 warmed because of Solar OR lack of volcanic activity.  Both of those forcing have switched and have NOT resulted in cooling- meaning GHGs have primarily forced the climate to our current state.  Those natural forces, because they are transient and ever oscillating, have little impact over a long term trend line (100+ years).

 

As far as the exact amount of feedback and the ultimate ECS in the long term, I agree every period of record should be thoroughly studied to figure out those values.  

 

Have volcanic activity and solar returned to pre-industrial forcings? And was that preindustrial temperature representative of an equilibrium climate or was it imbalanced at the time?

 

I don't think you know this. The attribution of the 0.8C warming to GHGs could be anywhere from all of it to perhaps more like 0.5-0.6C. That does make a difference in our sensitivty calculations.

 

There's a reason why we haven't narrowed it down any closer than 25 years ago.

 

 

The statement "The earth has warmed 0.8 degrees since pre-industrial times.  Most of that warming is likely due to GHGs." doesn't give us an answer to these questions which was sort of the original topic at hand....unless I missed something and we were just back to discussing the discovery that CO2 is responsible for the majority of the warming since the 19th century without quantifying it.

[nflwxman]

NCDC comes in with the warmest June on record.  This follows the warmest May on record.

 

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/6

[Snow_Miser]

Solar forcing isn't even significantly different than 0 anymore since 1750, with the most recent estimates of solar forcing accounting for the continued recent rapid decline in solar activity. 

 

[Isotherm]

Sure, it's related t

 

 

Sure, solar activity always has an impact on climate.  But if anything, the last 12-13 years has seen a precipitous decline in total solar radiance.   In fact, the 11 yr average radiance peaked around 1960 and has dropped since then.  The sun would now be considered a "negative forcing" from the stand point that it's below the long term average.  My comment before was referring to the fact that the sun is no longer a "positive" climate forcing as it was in the early 20th century. 

 

 

 

The radiance peak occurred in the 1960s, but the total solar irradiance has continued very high through the early 2000s in comparison with the 1600-1900 period. I also believe you're ignoring the possibility of a lag effect. Since the decline in solar irradiance over the past 10-15 years, we have begun to see a leveling off in global temperatures.

 

 

 

The following graphs are from a peer reviewed study. Solar irradiance is shown here to have a stronger correlation with temperatures than Co2 over a long time span

 

 

[nflwxman]

CO2 has only become a main climate forcing (in recent times) in the 20th century. Prior to that, CO2 levels were very stable going back thousands of years.  Thus, it's no surprise that irradiance over that timespan correlates well to temperature.

 

What would be the physical driver of a lagging effect that's over 10 years?  Oceans?  We can measure them.  They are not cooling.

 

We generally have this same conversation every year here and it's still not gotten cooler.  2014 is on pace for a top 3 warmest year without the help of a true nino.

[The_Global_Warmer]

NCDC comes in with the warmest June on record.  This follows the warmest May on record.

 

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/6

 

 

Damn.  That is even higher than I thought.  The lack of poleward data has split GISS and NCDC this month.

 

Do you know how well Hadcrut is represented over the South Pole?

 

 

• For the ocean, the June global sea surface temperature was 0.64°C (1.15°F) above the 20^th century average of 16.4°C (61.5°F), the highest for June on record and the highest departure from average for any month.
• The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the January–June period (year-to-date) was 0.67°C (1.21°F) above the 20^th century average of 13.5°C (56.3°F), tying with 2002 as the third warmest such period on record.

 

 

[nflwxman]

Damn.  That is even higher than I thought.  The lack of poleward data has split GISS and NCDC this month.

 

Do you know how well Hadcrut is represented over the South Pole?

Not great coverage.

[The_Global_Warmer]

Solar would of had a much bigger impact by now if it had a big impact at all.

 

 

 

[The_Global_Warmer]

Not great coverage.

 

 

It looks like GISS, Hadcrut, and NCDC are going to be on the record pace going into their warmest months on average.

 

UAH and RSS will likely be challenging for 3rd place on their data sets. 

 

The base line is moving up.

 

 

[GaWx]

What would be the physical driver of a lagging effect that's over 10 years?  Oceans?  We can measure them.  They are not cooling.

 

 

1) Do we really have accurate enough ocean data to know this with a lot of confidence? Have you followed the craziness of Nino 3.4 SST's recently?

 

2) Regarding lag: The sun is highest in the sky at midday. Yet, the highest temp. is normally several hours afterward due to lag. It takes time for the atmosphere to "catchup" to the sun on a normal day. Equilibrium isn't reached til late afternoon in many cases. Could the fact that 1950-2000 having been the most active 50 year period in 350+ years mean that there should be a lag before equilibrium is finally reached and cooling from the current weaker sun finally takes over? I still think that the jury is out. I'm still giving it til around 2018 (around 10 years after the prior cycle min.) to have a good feel for this. I want to see if some good cooling finally gets going by then.

[The_Global_Warmer]

1) Do we really have accurate enough ocean data to know this with a lot of confidence? Have you followed the craziness in Nino 3.4 SST's recently?

 

 

 

 

[GaWx]

 

Friv,

 But you, yourself, know what has occurred in 3.4 despite all of these floats.

[The_Global_Warmer]

Friv,

 But you, yourself know what has occurred in 3.4 despite all of these floats.

 

You are comparing apples to oranges this is a totally different system measuring OHC.  These have nothing to do with satellite based surface temp observations.

 

Why these are not used for more reliable OHC data for ENSO makes no sense to me.  But the OHC data gathered from this float system is very reliable.

[nflwxman]

1) Do we really have accurate enough ocean data to know this with a lot of confidence? Have you followed the craziness in Nino 3.4 SST's recently?

 

2) Regarding lag: The sun is highest in the sky at midday. Yet, the highest temp, is normally several hours afterward due to lag. It takes time for the atmosphere to "catchup" to the sun on a normal day. Could the fact that 1950-2000 having been the most active period in 350+ years mean that there should be a lag before cooling from the current weaker sun finally takes over? I still think that the jury is out. I'm still giving it til around 2018 (around 10 years after the prior cycle min.) to have a good feel for this. I want to see if some good cooling finally gets going by then.

 

Fair question GaWx.  The 3.4 data is satellite based data, while the recent Ocean Heat Content data is calculated by direct measurements by ARGO floats.  While these floats don't cover the entire ocean- they provide a very good set of measurements for content of the ocean.  

 

http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/

 

The atmosphere heats up because of the positive radiation flux is non-stop between sunrise and sunset.  You can physically measure the increase in temperature with the overall increasing radiation imbalance that occurs during the day.  We would be able to see that in the ocean data if that were happening climate wide.  Someone needs to have a physical mechanism for the lag that justifies more than a 10 year wait between solar output and ocean temperatures.  It's just not shown up in the data historically.

[GaWx]

Fair question GaWx.  The 3.4 data is satellite based data, while the recent Ocean Heat Content data is calculated by direct measurements by ARGO floats.  While these floats don't cover the entire ocean- they provide a very good set of measurements for content of the ocean.  

 

http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/

 

The atmosphere heats up because of the positive radiation flux is non-stop between sunrise and sunset.  You can physically measure the increase in temperature with the overall increasing radiation imbalance that occurs during the day.  We would be able to see that in the ocean data if that were happening climate wide.  Someone needs to have a physical mechanism for the lag that justifies more than a 10 year wait between solar output and ocean temperatures.  It's just not shown up in the data historically.

 

 Have you seen the Nino OHC anomaly recently? Per NOAA, it has plunged ~2 C in just a few months from +1.95 C in late March to -0.15 C in middle July!! Is this reliable? Where did all of that OHC go? Did it contribute to a warming atmosphere? I'm guessing it did to some extent. I realize this is for just a small volume of the upper oceans of the world to be fair. Smaller volumes mean more volatility. I realize that. But this much volatility? Linked here:

 

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf