2011 Global Temperatures

[skierinvermont]

I'm wondering why the plateau at the end like many OHC measurements...maybe its a bit later than the 0-700m, but its there 2006-2008...what about 2008-2011? I haven't seen anything on that. That's a big omission.

Obviously global temps have not been warming in this time frame too, so I'd expect to see a big spike in OHC. We actually do not in the 0-700m OHC, but we have no data for post-2008 for the 0-2000m. And the point still stands about global temp worries. If we somehow figure out that the ocean can mix down heat much better than previously thought, then the predictions of the air temps warming near the surface will need to be seriously reduced and instead put into the oceans. I think its a big deal to figure out just how much the ocean is warming and to what depth if we are going to try and project air temp anomalies to 2100. Well "I" doesn't matter...but scientists who are trying to figure this stuff out certainly need to know and I think that is why we keep seeing so many random comments about the lack of OHC increase and the lack of warming in the air since the early 2000s...not just bloggers like realclimate or whomever who try to dismiss that. Its just as bad as wattsupwiththat claiming a cooling in 2008 was the end of GHG warming or something.

I think you are a bit confused. It is not as if there is a set amount of heat and it can go into either the oceans or the air. If sea surface temperatures do not rise, the earth will simply gain heat much much faster until the SSTs do rise. If we suddenly cooled the earth's SSTs by .8C... there would be a huge energy deficit given the present composition of our atmosphere, and the oceans would gain heat very rapidly until they started approaching current day temperatures.

Even if the oceans mix much more efficiently than presently thought, it would only slow surface warming very slightly. The earth would simply gain heat much faster because cooler surface temperatures = less outgoing LW radiation = greater energy imbalance.

[ORH_wxman]

I think you are a bit confused. It is not as if there is a set amount of heat and it can go into either the oceans or the air. If sea surface temperatures do not rise, the earth will simply gain heat much much faster until the SSTs do rise. If we suddenly cooled the earth's SSTs by .8C... there would be a huge energy deficit given the present composition of our atmosphere, and the oceans would gain heat very rapidly until they started approaching current day temperatures.

Even if the oceans mix much more efficiently than presently thought, it would only slow surface warming very slightly. The earth would simply gain heat much faster because cooler surface temperatures = less outgoing LW radiation = greater energy imbalance.

Yeah but the air temperatures aren't rising, that is the point. You say it only slows the earth's warming very slightly, but that hasn't been the case, the warming has stopped for the time being, so OHC should be increasing quite a bit. Where is the heat going?

[skierinvermont]

Yeah but the air temperatures aren't rising, that is the point. You say it only slows the earth's warming very slightly, but that hasn't been the case, the warming has stopped for the time being, so OHC should be increasing quite a bit. Where is the heat going?

Well again.. I just don't see a meaningful deceleration in either the 0-2000m OHC through 2008 or the SLR through 2011. Very slight with the SLR... but less than a 10% deceleration and the potential measurement error is much larger than the deceleration itself.

[ORH_wxman]

Well again.. I just don't see a meaningful deceleration in either the 0-2000m OHC through 2008 or the SLR through 2011. Very slight with the SLR... but less than a 10% deceleration and the potential measurement error is much larger than the deceleration itself.

Ok, but I'm skeptical of your data through 2011...you showed a graph on 0-2000m OHC that leveled off 2006-2008 but nothing more recent. 0-700m hasn't risen since then and neither have global temps. Where is the huge OHC rise that is supposed to occur in a La Nina like this past year?

I completely agree with you that it could all be deeper than what is measured right now, but then you have the issue with sfc temps...if it goes deeper than modeled, then sfc temps will not warm as much as projections show. So there is a definite disconnect there. Either we warm the ocean or the air...but if we aren't warming the upper ocean, then that means the ocean is a better mixer of heat than we thought and global air temps should be backed off in model projections if we plug that in as a true occurrence.

[skierinvermont]

Purkey and Johson is the 2010 study on the abyssal ocean heat storage and the antarctic bottom water current (AABW).

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/gjohnson/gcj_3w.pdf

[skierinvermont]

Ok, but I'm skeptical of your data through 2011...you showed a graph on 0-2000m OHC that leveled off 2006-2008 but nothing more recent. 0-700m hasn't risen since then and neither have global temps. Where is the huge OHC rise that is supposed to occur in a La Nina like this past year?

I completely agree with you that it could all be deeper than what is measured right now, but then you have the issue with sfc temps...if it goes deeper than modeled, then sfc temps will not warm as much as projections show. So there is a definite disconnect there. Either we warm the ocean or the air...but if we aren't warming the upper ocean, then that means the ocean is a better mixer of heat than we thought and global air temps should be backed off in model projections if we plug that in as a true occurrence.

Faster mixing on the oceans doesn't really mean surface warming will be slower. In fact, in the long run it means faster surface warming because we will reach the equilibrium sooner. There isn't a set amount of heat to be absorbed. If the surface warms slower, we will gain heat faster so that the surface does warm.

And I am not including the fact that faster mixing means less CO2 absorption by the oceans.

You are right though that either the surface should be warming, or OHC should be warming. If neither are warming, that presents issues.

[ORH_wxman]

Faster mixing on the oceans doesn't really mean surface warming will be slower. In fact, in the long run it means faster surface warming because we will reach the equilibrium sooner.

You are right though that either the surface should be warming, or OHC should be warming. If neither are warming, that presents issues.

Well i certainly didn't make a comment on the speed of the mixing...mixing is actually a bad word. Its absorbing. Mixing implies the water evens out at the same temp. But if the oceans are absorbing heat at a big rate, that will account for lack of surface warming, but we don't see that yet, or haven't seen any good data on it yet. Both the OHC and air temps have not warmed from what we are able to measure in recent years. So I think its a legit question to ask.

Where is the heat going?

[BethesdaWX]

I think you are a bit confused. It is not as if there is a set amount of heat and it can go into either the oceans or the air. If sea surface temperatures do not rise, the earth will simply gain heat much much faster until the SSTs do rise. If we suddenly cooled the earth's SSTs by .8C... there would be a huge energy deficit given the present composition of our atmosphere, and the oceans would gain heat very rapidly until they started approaching current day temperatures.

Even if the oceans mix much more efficiently than presently thought, it would only slow surface warming very slightly. The earth would simply gain heat much faster because cooler surface temperatures = less outgoing LW radiation = greater energy imbalance.

I think you are a bit confused. Do you know how models Profile the warming in the Oceans? Re-emitted LW radiation is very low frequency (unlike UV rays, for example, in the infrared spectrum), and cannot penetrate as effectively into the deeper oceans as it can the 0-700m section. This is not saying that there is no effect, but once below 2000m, not only the density/pressure of the water down below 2K, 3K, 4K, 5K, etc, but simply the ability of lower frequency energy to penetrate deep into any body of matter. The Deep Oceans, going 3000, 4000, 5000m down, would be much less affected by Re-emitted LW radiation unless the oceans are efficient at Properly entrenching/absorbing the supposed extra energy...again, that is a huge unknown that can only be modeled. If this is the Case, indeed, the warming would be severely migitated at not only the surface (SSTs), but also the atmosphere.

Also remember, that Increasing CO2 is one of many factors that led to the increase in OHC. Some of these being the Severe Depletion of Ozone, allowing extra High Frequency UVA/UVB rays into the Oceans, including the deep oceans, and that coupled with an overall active sun, would warm the Oceans Significantly all the way through. UVA/UVB rays can warm the entire oceans much more efficiently than re-emitted LW radiation could. Other Factors are likely lower levels of LLGCC in the atmosphere, allowing more overall light energy from the Visible Spectrum Into the Oceans...again...also higher frequency than Re-emitted LW radiation.

Just to show how the Planet's OLR varies, just look at official CPC data. We see fluctuations of up to 80W/m^2 in strong ENSO fluctuations, this is because ENSO affects tropical global cloud cover and moisture, globally as well, and this is how ENSO warms/cools the Planet. This is also how changes in the PDO and AMO affects temperature, not by changes in The SST's alone, but also the effects on GCC.

A reduction in Global Cloud Cover would actually crease an increase in OLR, as more light from the Visible spectrum hits the surface, having the warming effect most significantly at the surface, and less as we head up into the atmosphere. Now notice that avg OLR has increased by 10-15W/m^2 or more over the past 30yrs...

Now notice that any effect by CO2, about 1.6W/m^2 since 1790, is a bunch of nothing compared to natural Variability in OLR. The reason Models call for so Much warming due to CO2 increase & variations by 2 W'm^2 over the next 25yrs, as increasing CO2 is forecasted to do, is because we treat the climate system like (as rusty says) a blackbody.... in this case, lets say a Piece of wood, and how the wood warms and cools due to various forcings. But the problem with thag method, is 1) The climate system is extremely complex, and 2) it is Chaotic. There are literally millions of inter-correlations & an overal logorithmic "effect" to any disruption, in this case, in the feedback spectrum in general, is where we find this.

The only way to efficiently change the Heat Content of a system like this is to change how much can energy can enter it, now how much can leave it. This is where we have screwed up royally. When you over-simplfy something, you will never be able to properly assess how it functions. This is exactly what we have done.

So in the end, rest assured, you'll see major changes in our perspective within the next 20-30yrs.

[skierinvermont]

Well i certainly didn't make a comment on the speed of the mixing...mixing is actually a bad word. Its absorbing. Mixing implies the water evens out at the same temp. But if the oceans are absorbing heat at a big rate, that will account for lack of surface warming, but we don't see that yet, or haven't seen any good data on it yet. Both the OHC and air temps have not warmed from what we are able to measure in recent years. So I think its a legit question to ask.

Where is the heat going?

Surface temps have rapidly warmed since 07/08. We don't really have good OHC data for that period. SLR has pretty much gone up linearly. These periods are just too short to be of much interest anyways given the state of our detection abilities at this point.

[ORH_wxman]

Surface temps have rapidly warmed since 07/08. We don't really have good OHC data for that period. SLR has pretty much gone up linearly.

They haven't rapidly warmed at all since 2006 when it went flat. I want to see some good 0-2000m data since 2006. It stayed flat in 2006-2007 despite an El Nino, so obviously it wasn't ENSO unless the data was spotty and poor. I don't make any comments on 0-2000m OHC until we see a good, solid, peer reviewed measurement through 2011.

The 700m sources show nothing and the sfc temps show nothing since 2004 or so (sfc temps since 2002). I'd just like to know where all this heat we are accumulating is going. I believe it could easily be lower in the ocean. I'm totally on board for that. I just think that is that is true, then typical global climate models that show 2-5C of warming between now and 2100 need to be scratched and that is completely false. If the ocean can absorb more heat than we thought, then we need to reduce the projections for air temps. I'm not saying any of this is good, but it needs to happen if we cannot explain why OHC and air temps are both relative flat lines.

[skierinvermont]

Like I said though, if the oceans are absorbing more heat it actually mean more surface warming in the long run. If the heat is transported from the surface to the deep then the surface remains cool only temporarily. As GHGs build up, the surface must warm or else the oceans would accumulate heat at an absurdly fast rate and begin to boil.

[skierinvermont]

Not only does what I am saying make sense intuitively if you think about how AGW works, but that's what climate models show as well.

Those models which store more heat in the deep oceans end up warming faster than those models which stratify the oceans and don't store much heat in the deep.

If you run a 100 year simulate, the model which stores a lot of heat in the deep would start out the surface warming slower, but would quickly overtake the model which stratifies the oceans more.

[ORH_wxman]

Like I said though, if the oceans are absorbing more heat it actually mean more surface warming in the long run. If the heat is transported from the surface to the deep then the surface remains cool only temporarily. As GHGs build up, the surface must warm or else the oceans would accumulate heat at an absurdly fast rate and begin to boil.

If oceans can mix heat down way more efficiently, then air temps will not warm even close to what models show for 2100....it might mean more/worse warming in the next 500-1000 years, but that is on a scale that is beyond our concern whether we want to admit it or not....and GHGs are likely to be so different at that point due to different energy sources.

I don't think any of the GHG warming is good, but I do think its important to recognize just how much warming it actually causes.

[skierinvermont]

If oceans can mix heat down way more efficiently, then air temps will not warm even close to what models show for 2100....it might mean more/worse warming in the next 500-1000 years, but that is on a scale that is beyond our concern whether we want to admit it or not....and GHGs are likely to be so different at that point due to different energy sources.

I don't think any of the GHG warming is good, but I do think its important to recognize just how much warming it actually causes.

Just think about this for a minute. That is not what climate models show and it makes sense intuitively if you think about it for a minute.

Think of two alternative planets (or climate models).

One mixes heat down into the deep oceans effectively. The other does not. In the former the energy imbalance can grow as large as 1.2W/m2, while in the latter the energy imbalance never gets that large because the surface quickly warms in response to the radiative forcing. So the imbalance maxes out around .6W/m2. Half as much as in our parallel universe with oceans which transport heat to the deep.

However, the imbalance in the fast-transport earth can still never get much beyond 1.2W/m2 which means as the radiative forcing increaseses, surface temperatures increase proportionally.

So after 4W/m2 of radiative forcing from increasing CO2.. surface temperatures on planet A have increased enough to re-emit 2.8W/m2 faster... while on Planet B they have increased enough to re-emit an additional 3.4W/m2. So temperatures on planet B would be warmer. However, its oceans are still very very cold because the planet has gained heat at half the rate (.6W/m2). This means that even with the very slow mixing, the deep oceans will start to depress the surface warming.

On planet A, the deep oceans are much warmer, and so in the long run will depress the surface warming less.

This would become true certainly within a 100 years during which time CO2 had doubled.

So if the deep oceans warmed really slowly on earth from 1900-2000 .. that actually means less surface warming by 2100 because those cold deep waters will eventually depress the surface warming.

But if earth's deep oceans rapidly gained heat from 1900-2000... that actually means more surface warming by 2100.

In addition, the oceans which transported heat deeper, and thus the planet which gained heat content faster, would have a great CO2 positive feedback because the oceans could absorb less CO2.

And this is what climate models show... the models which transport the heat warm just as fast if not faster than the models which transport less heat to the deep by 2100.

[ORH_wxman]

Just think about this for a minute. That is not what climate models show and it makes sense intuitively if you think about it for a minute.

Think of two alternative planets (or climate models).

One mixes heat down into the deep oceans effectively. The other does not. In the former the energy imbalance can grow as large as 1.2W/m2, while in the latter the energy imbalance never gets that large because the surface quickly warms in response to the radiative forcing. So the imbalance maxes out around .6W/m2. Half as much as in our parallel universe with oceans which transport heat to the deep.

However, the imbalance in the fast-transport earth can still never get much beyond 1.2W/m2 which means as the radiative forcing increaseses, surface temperatures increase proportionally.

So after 4W/m2 of radiative forcing from increasing CO2.. surface temperatures on planet A have increased enough to re-emit 2.8W/m2 faster... while on Planet B they have increased enough to re-emit an additional 3.4W/m2. So temperatures on planet B would be warmer. However, its oceans are still very very cold because the planet has gained heat at half the rate (.6W/m2). This means that even with the very slow mixing, the deep oceans will start to depress the surface warming.

On planet A, the deep oceans are much warmer, and so in the long run will depress the surface warming less.

This would become true certainly within a 100 years during which time CO2 had doubled.

So if the deep oceans warmed really slowly on earth from 1900-2000 .. that actually means less surface warming by 2100 because those cold deep waters will eventually depress the surface warming.

But if earth's deep oceans rapidly gained heat from 1900-2000... that actually means more surface warming by 2100.

In addition, the oceans which transported heat deeper, and thus the planet which gained heat content faster, would have a great CO2 positive feedback because the oceans could absorb less CO2.

And this is what climate models show... the models which transport the heat warm just as fast if not faster than the models which transport less heat to the deep by 2100.

I'm not sure what you are trying to explain here....that a more efficient heat sink will cause for faster sfc warming this century? You are assuming an ocean that absorbs most heat without albedo...am I correct? That is not the case if you are.

If I'm wrong on point #1, then you are assuming that this planet's oceans will sufficiently mix out its lower layers of the ocean in a short time to let it warm the surface. The ocean is pretty large.

I'm not sure this hypothetical situation is even remotely applicable to the earth within the time frame we are talking about. Of course if the lower levels of the ocean warm up to the point of efficient mixing, the earth with torch, but that won't happen for God knows how long. Way longer than anything that says 2100 or even 2400.

Regardless of any of these answers, why would we not warm with OHC staying fairly constant the last 7 years? (unless you use the very deep ocean theory which requires a crapload of mixing to get the sfc temps to warm).

[skierinvermont]

I'm not sure what you are trying to explain here....that a more efficient heat sink will cause for faster sfc warming this century? You are assuming an ocean that absorbs most heat without albedo...am I correct? That is not the case if you are.

If I'm wrong on point #1, then you are assuming that this planet's oceans will sufficiently mix out its lower layers of the ocean in a short time to let it warm the surface. The ocean is pretty large.

I'm not sure this hypothetical situation is even remotely applicable to the earth within the time frame we are talking about. Of course if the lower levels of the ocean warm up to the point of efficient mixing, the earth with torch, but that won't happen for God knows how long. Way longer than anything that says 2100 or even 2400.

Regardless of any of these answers, why would we not warm with OHC staying fairly constant the last 7 years? (unless you use the very deep ocean theory which requires a crapload of mixing to get the sfc temps to warm).

EDIT: I'm probably still not being very clear.. it's late I will try again tomorrow. Perhaps I can dig up the results of two climate models one with fast mixing and the other with slow mixing to show the effect over the next 100 years.

Let me try putting it another way.

If the oceans mix heat to the deep faster, the energy imbalance of the earth can become larger. The imbalance is caused by a disparity between the composition of the atmosphere (causing an opacity to outgoing LW radiation), and surface temperatures which have not warmed enough to restore OLR. But the imbalance can never really become very large. In an earth where the oceans mix heat to the deep twice as effectively this imbalance might grow to as high as 1.2Wm/2 ... but in a planet which doesn't send heat to the deep very well the imbalance only gets to .6W/m2.

Either way, the imbalance stays pretty small. Surface temperatures are strongly dictated by atmospheric composition (ie Radiative forcing). So even in this "fast mixing" ocean model the imbalance can only get to 1.2W/m2. Which is not much of a cushion. If we get 2W/m2 of radiative forcing.. then there will have been much more warming on the slow mix planet.

Slow mix ocean: 2-.6 = 1.4W/m2 of surface warming

Fast mix ocean: 2-1.2= .8W/m2 of surface warming.

So yes you'd see slightly more warming in the slow mix ocean. However, what you'll see over time is that the imbalance on the fast mix planet decreases because the deep oceans have warmed, while the slow mix planet the imbalance grows because the deep oceans are still frigid and even with the more limited mixing that is occurring, this very cold water is still mixing to the surface to some extent.

So now the imbalance on both planets is .8W/m2. And the radiative forcing has increased to 5W/m2 because of continuing GHG emissions.

Slow mix ocean: 5-.8 = 4.2W/m2 of surface warming

Fast mix ocean: 5-.8 = 4.2W/m2 of surface warming

So now we find both planets have warmed the same amount. Except the deep ocean on one is much much warmer than the other.

If we then include the fact that this would actually lead to greater CO2 concentrations and thus greater radiative forcing the situation looks more like this:

slow mix ocean 5-.8=4.2W/m2 of surface warming

fast mix ocean 6-.8 = 5.2 W/m2 of surface warming

This is approximately what will occur over the next 100 years.

What I have basically just described is the actual results of two climate models, one which tranports heat deep and another which does not, over the next 100 years. Now if the oceans were even bigger and deeper than they are, and the mixing were absurdly fast (faster than it could possible ever be in reality) then yeah over 100 years it would slow the surface warming (although over 500 years it would accelerate it).

[ORH_wxman]

Let me try putting it another way.

If the oceans mix heat to the deep faster, the energy imbalance of the earth can become larger. The imbalance is caused by a disparity between the composition of the atmosphere, and surface temperatures. But the imbalance can never really become very large. In an earth where the oceans mix heat to the deep twice as effectively this imbalance might grow to as high as 1.2Wm/2 ... but in a planet which doesn't send heat to the deep very well the imbalance only gets to .6W/m2.

Either way, the imbalance stays pretty small. Surface temperatures are strongly dictated by atmospheric composition (ie Radiative forcing). So even in this "fast mixing" ocean model the imbalance can only get to 1.2W/m2. Which is not much of a cushion. If we get 2W/m2 of radiative forcing.. then there will have been much more warming on the slow mix planet.

Slow mix ocean: 2-.6 = 1.4W/m2 of surface warming

Fast mix ocean: 2-1.2= .8W/m2 of surface warming.

So yes you'd see slightly more warming in the slow mix ocean. However, what you'll see over time is that the imbalance on the fast mix planet decreases because the deep oceans have warmed, while the slow mix planet the imbalance grows because the deep oceans are still frigid and even with the more limited mixing that is occurring, this very cold water is still mixing to the surface to some extent.

So now the imbalance on both planets is .8W/m2. And the radiative forcing has increased to 5W/m2 because of continuing GHG emissions.

Slow mix ocean: 5-.8 = 4.2W/m2 of surface warming

Fast mix ocean: 5-.8 = 4.2W/m2 of surface warming

So now we find both planets have warmed the same amount. Except the deep ocean on one is much much warmer than the other.

If we then include the fact that this would actually lead to greater CO2 concentrations and thus greater radiative forcing the situation looks more like this:

slow mix ocean 5-.8=4.2W/m2 of surface warming

fast mix ocean 6-.8 = 5.2 W/m2 of surface warming

This is approximately what will occur over the next 100 years.

What I have basically just described is the actual results of two climate models, one which tranports heat deep and another which does not, over the next 100 years. Now if the oceans were even bigger and deeper than they are, and the mixing were absurdly fast (faster than it could possible ever be in reality) then yeah over 100 years it would slow the surface warming (although over 500 years it would accelerate it).

So what you are saying as that deeper ocean mixing could cause the warming to be slower until hundreds of years from now? Isn't that what I was saying?

Or am I missing something yet again? You mentioned briefly at the end that oceans larger than now would be 100s of years. But you never mentioned anything on the speed of current oceans. You gave me a bunch of equations which I had hoped to never see again since college, but nothing on the speed of the mixing versus warming. You give me long term totals which is what I am not interested in. I already said we'd torch with long term mixing....but if it happens on a scale of 100s of years, then that drastically affects the projections of warming in the air through 2100.

Bottom line is that if the ocean is in the process of absorbing heat and not to its capacity, then the air temp will not be as much of a rise. You can talk about longer term, and that is fine, but its completely irrelevant to my original point about warming from the present to 2100. Hypothetical models have already done a piss poor job at modeling our climate, and the oceans are about the worst it gets. You are getting quite theoretical here and straying very hard from the observations that this thread was originally talking about. How much more heat is this ocean going to absorb (assuming we are even accumulating 0-2000m heat which you failed to show since 2006) before temps should rise? I do not want to stray too off topic here.

[Clifford]

Keep in mind that the oceans fight to maintain a temperature gradient (thermocline).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocline

Increasing the surface temperature by 1/2 degree will cause a much smaller change at a mile below the surface, with the majority of the changes observed within the first few hundred feet.

The distribution of hot/cold water is not dependent on time, but rather maintaining the maximum density deep down. The thermocline isn't as strong in seas with restricted inlets and no deepwater paths to the arctic.

[Snow_Miser]

See Schuckmann below which uses ARGO data. The .77W/m2 rate of storage over the 2003-2008 period is near the theoretical value. There also was another recent study on deep sea storage of heat in the southern ocean. The southern ocean water moves south, cools, sinks and then moves northwards along the bottom, thus storing much of the earth's heat.

Skier, please tell me that you are joking with this dataset you have just presented.

It is really clear where this graph starts with the trend. Right after the end of a slight dip in OHC, giving the impression that we are still gaining Heat Content.

However, if you start right in the middle of the spike and the dip, you get no gain in OHC. Vise Versa, if you were to start at the top of the "peak" in 2002, you would get a slight decrease in OHC. When you extrapolate the trend from a datapoint in 2002 along the yearly average, you get no gain of OHC.

[Snow_Miser]

He quoted a retracted statement by Josh Willis saying OHC had not increased. Josh Willis later retracted this claim. Failing to explain that Josh Willis later retracted the quoted claim is disingenuous at best.. more likely intentional deceit.

You didn't answer my question.

How has quoting this person impacted Pielke's analysis that for the last several years, the oceans have not gained any Heat Content?

That graphic is simply a summary of all published work in the last several years. Some of the graphics displayed (the ones that show no warming) have been retracted.

So where have these studies been retracted?There is an interesting fairly recent paper that was released, and the authors are physicists David Dougass and Robert Knox. They examine Ocean Heat Content in this paper. It's an interesting read.

[skierinvermont]

Skier, please tell me that you are joking with this dataset you have just presented.

It is really clear where this graph starts with the trend. Right after the end of a slight dip in OHC, giving the impression that we are still gaining Heat Content.

However, if you start right in the middle of the spike and the dip, you get no gain in OHC. Vise Versa, if you were to start at the top of the "peak" in 2002, you would get a slight decrease in OHC. When you extrapolate the trend from a datapoint in 2002 along the yearly average, you get no gain of OHC.

1. The Schuckmann graph begins in 2003 because that is when ARGO became operational. There is no ARGO data prior to 2003.

2. The spike in OHC on your graph is in 2003-2004.. not 2002. So Schuckmann is actually starting at the supposed peak, not the supposed dip. You are completely wrong in where you thought the spike was in Levitus 2009 (your graph). It's in 2003-2004.. not 2002. Use a piece of paper vertical along the x-axis. The spike in your graph was 2003-2004, the dip was in 2005. Why can't anybody on this forum read an x-axis?

3. The rise across the 2003-2008 period is fairly linear, while the rise on your graph occurs all in about a 6 month period in 2005.

[skierinvermont]

You didn't answer my question.

How has quoting this person impacted Pielke's analysis that for the last several years, the oceans have not gained any Heat Content?

So where have these studies been retracted?There is an interesting fairly recent paper that was released, and the authors are physicists David Dougass and Robert Knox. They examine Ocean Heat Content in this paper. It's an interesting read.

LOL @ citing Douglass and Knox... that paper is complete hogwash.

They basically regurgitate the work of Willis 2008 which Willis has since retracted. It's not peer-reviewed.

[OHSnow]

Channel 5 AMSU temps continue climbing. Still 2nd highest from the years posted, and almost caught up to last year. Just .09C below 2010 now. With models showing a hot weather pattern for much of the Northern Hemisphere, I'd have to imagine global temps will continue to rise.

[nzucker]

Channel 5 AMSU temps continue climbing. Still 2nd highest from the years posted, and almost caught up to last year. Just .09C below 2010 now. With models showing a hot weather pattern for much of the Northern Hemisphere, I'd have to imagine global temps will continue to rise.

The GFS shows the global anomaly down to like .14C from near .3C just a couple weeks ago. A lot of the Arctic has cooled off and the major cold anomalies in Antarctica take care of the NH pretty well.

Also, global SSTs have been near the bottom of the pack on AMSU, so I'm sure Channel 5 will drop off soon. It usually follows the SSTs by a couple months.

[skierinvermont]

The GFS shows the global anomaly down to like .14C from near .3C just a couple weeks ago. A lot of the Arctic has cooled off and the major cold anomalies in Antarctica take care of the NH pretty well.

Also, global SSTs have been near the bottom of the pack on AMSU, so I'm sure Channel 5 will drop off soon. It usually follows the SSTs by a couple months.

The lag is more like 5 months. Also .15C on the GFS"s 1980-2009 baseline is still .47C above the 1951-1980 baseline, which is quite warm.

We're currently .2C above any other year except 2010 on AMSU CH5.

[nzucker]

The lag is more like 5 months.

We're currently .2C above any other year except 2010 on AMSU CH5.

It'll be interesting to see where GISS comes in for June since it dropped so much in May. This may be one of the rare cases where the satellites are running warmer than the surface.

GFS has dropped the 8-day global anomaly to .107C, showing the divergence that's been starting w/ the LT...just a few weeks ago, we were at +.3C on GFS:

Also, AMSU SSTs running very low, so Channel 5 seems like the outlier right now. Given that and the move towards Nina, I think we see a cooler finish to 2011. Last month wasn't terribly warm on UAH though, came in at .13C.

[nzucker]

The lag is more like 5 months. Also .15C on the GFS"s 1980-2009 baseline is still .47C above the 1951-1980 baseline, which is quite warm.

It's pretty close to GISS coming in at .42C for May, actually. This was one of the coldest readings since back in the 07-08 Nina. So that is pretty cool by GISS standards.

GFS did get down to like -.2C this winter, it's obviously come up with the Nina fading and the warmth in the NH, but .1C is not a large anomaly compared to a few weeks ago.

Just continuing the non-warming trend. With NASA's recent announcement about the solar min, IPCC is starting to look like a lost cause.

[tacoman25]

The lag is more like 5 months. Also .15C on the GFS"s 1980-2009 baseline is still .47C above the 1951-1980 baseline, which is quite warm.

We're currently .2C above any other year except 2010 on AMSU CH5.

That's more for ENSO, not SST's in general.

[tacoman25]

The lag is more like 5 months. Also .15C on the GFS"s 1980-2009 baseline is still .47C above the 1951-1980 baseline, which is quite warm.

We're currently .2C above any other year except 2010 on AMSU CH5.

Didn't you say recently that it's silly to make daily comparisons?

[nzucker]

That's more for ENSO, not SST's in general.

What do you think of GISS coming down a lot, Taco?