General AGW discussion thread

[parejkoj]

Do we have any recent noticeable sea level rise?
The answer is NO.
.
.
.
The actual last century sea leval rise by Simon J. Holgate (Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, Liverpool, UK) reports an yearly increase of 1,74 mm ± 0,16 mm
The study reports a 2,03 mm ± 0,35 mm yearly from 1904-1953 and from 1954 to 2003 was 1,45 mm ± 0,34 mm.

You seem confused. The numbers you cite above from Holgate (2006) clearly show a yearly increase in sea level. Sea level has increased ~20cm over the past century. This is faster than the central value of the IPCC 2001 predictions.

[William]

For those people who are interested in the solar magnetic cycle's affect on planetary cloud cover the finding that the sun was been unusually activity during the minimum of solar cycle 24.

Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR, mainly high speed protons) that strike the earth have increased 18% due the weakening heliosphere, planetary cloud cover has not, however, significantly increased. A explanation for that finding is something is removing the ions that are produced by GCR from the planet's atmosphere.

Solar wind bursts are hypothesized to remove cloud forming ions via the process called electroscavenging. (The solar wind bursts create a space charge in the ionosphere which removes the ions from the atmosphere.) Planetary temperature has tracked the geomagnetic field measurement Ak which is directly proportional to the number, strength, and duration of the solar wind bursts. Solar wind bursts cause fast changes in the geomagnetic field intensity. Ak is a measure of the rate of change of the geomagnetic field intensity.

Solar wind bursts are just recently starting to abate. If the GCR modulation of clouds hypothesis is correct there should be a significant increase in planetary cloud cover and a drop in planetary temperature.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/200...JA014342.shtml

If the Sun is so quiet, why is the Earth ringing? A comparison of two solar minimum intervals.

Observations from the recent Whole Heliosphere Interval (WHI) solar minimum campaign are compared to last cycle's Whole Sun Month (WSM) to demonstrate that sunspot numbers, while providing a good measure of solar activity, do not provide sufficient information to gauge solar and heliospheric magnetic complexity and its effect at the Earth. The present solar minimum is exceptionally quiet, with sunspot numbers at their lowest in 75 years and solar wind magnetic field strength lower than ever observed. Despite, or perhaps because of, a global weakness in the heliospheric magnetic field, large near-equatorial coronal holes lingered even as the sunspots disappeared. Consequently, for the months surrounding the WHI campaign, strong, long, and recurring high-speed streams in the solar wind intercepted the Earth in contrast to the weaker and more sporadic streams that occurred around the time of last cycle's WSM campaign.

In response, geospace and upper atmospheric parameters continued to ring with the periodicities of the solar wind in a manner that was absent last cycle minimum, and the flux of relativistic electrons in the Earth's outer radiation belt was elevated to levels more than three times higher in WHI than in WSM. Such behavior could not have been predicted using sunspot numbers alone, indicating the importance of considering variation within and between solar minima in analyzing and predicting space weather responses at the Earth during solar quiet intervals, as well as in interpreting the Sun's past behavior as preserved in geological and historical records.

[William]

It appears the planet is about to abruptly cool. In the past there have been cyclic abrupt cooling events that are three to four times greater than the climate change observed in the last 2000 years. (Recorded history.) The past abrupt cooling events correlate with cosmogenic isotope changes.

It appears the sun is abruptly moving from the highest solar magnetic activity in 10,000 years to a deep magnetic minimum. The cosmogenic isotopes changes that are being produced by that solar change will match those of past abrupt cooling events. The general public and governments are not prepared for abrupt planetary cooling. Based on the information provide by the IPCC most people believe the planet will warm and abrupt planetary cooling is impossible.

The abrupt cooling events are cyclic.

There has been no scientific evaluation of the impact of abrupt cooling. There is no strategy prepared to deal with abrupt cooling.

The following is evidence of a lack of balanced scientific debate concerning planetary climate change.

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/letters/87/8730letters.html

Instead of debate, members are constantly subjected to your arrogant self-righteousness and the left-wing practice of stifling debate by personal attacks on anyone who disagrees. I think ACS should make an effort to educate its membership about the science of climate change and let them draw their own conclusions. Although under your editorial leadership, I suspect we would be treated to a biased and skewed version of scientific debate. I think its time to find a new editor.

http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2009/...l-society.html

As physicists who are familiar with the science issues, and as current and past members of the American Physical Society, we the undersigned urge the Council to revise its current statement on climate change as follows, so as to more accurately represent the current state of the science:

Greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, accompany human industrial and agricultural activity. While substantial concern has been expressed that emissions may cause significant climate change, measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th - 21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today. In addition, there is an extensive scientific literature that examines beneficial effects of increased levels of carbon dioxide for both plants and animals.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...ing-wanna-bet/

Global cooling appears to be the “flavour of the month”. First, a rather misguided media discussion erupted on whether global warming had stopped, based on the observed temperatures of the past 8 years or so (see our post). Now, an entirely new discussion is capturing the imagination, based on a group of scientists from Germany predicting a pause in global warming last week in the journal Nature (Keenlyside et al. 2008).

[William]

http://www.pnas.org/content/97/4/1331.full

Ice-core evidence of abrupt climate changes

Ice-core records show that climate changes in the past have been large, rapid, and synchronous over broad areas extending into low latitudes, with less variability over historical times. These ice-core records come from high mountain glaciers and the polar regions, including small ice caps and the large ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. As the world slid into and out of the last ice age, the general cooling and warming trends were punctuated by abrupt changes.

Climate shifts up to half as large as the entire difference between ice age and modern conditions occurred over hemispheric or broader regions in mere years to decades. Such abrupt changes have been absent during the few key millennia when agriculture and industry have arisen. The speed, size, and extent of these abrupt changes required a reappraisal of climate stability.

Records of these changes are especially clear in high-resolution ice cores. Ice cores can preserve histories of local climate (snowfall, temperature), regional (wind-blown dust, sea salt, etc.), and broader (trace gases in the air) conditions, on a common time scale, demonstrating synchrony of climate changes over broad regions.

http://www.pnas.org/content/97/4/1331/F1.large.jpg

[heldervelez]

You seem confused. The numbers you cite above from Holgate (2006) clearly show a yearly increase in sea level. Sea level has increased ~20cm over the past century. This is faster than the central value of the IPCC 2001 predictions.

the year - lower-upper-central values of SLR from IPCC are :
by 1995 ?? - 94 cm - ??
by 2001 9 cm - 88 cm - 48 cm
by 2007 19 cm - 59 cm - ??

the maximum bound has been pregressively revised to lowers values.

The central value of 2001 prediction is 48 cm, far bellow the 20 cm.
Am I confused, as you said?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise
-----
google for 6m 2100 sea level rise ipcc
and look at the first results from ipcc
I do remember mediatic maps of my country (Portugal) swallowed by the water of estimate scenarios in press magazines.
I call it alarmist or 'algorist'
------
The growing rate of SLR on the 150 years was 0.013 mm/year^2
and IMMO it is a quite small value.
During the interglacial period the GSL has to grow, naturally.

Jevrejeva, S., A. Grinsted, J. C. Moore, and S. Holgate (2006), Nonlinear trends and multiyear cycles in sea level records, J. Geophys. Res., 111, C09012, doi:10.1029/2005JC003229.
based on 12 regions on global scale
Jevrejeva et al in this more recent papper (2008)
Recent global sea level acceleration started over 200 years ago?
S. Jevrejeva, J. C. Moore, A. Grinsted and P. L. Woodworth
at
http://www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/author_ar...08GL033611.pdf
pretends to show an recent increase in the gsl rate but if forgets to say that the Little Ice Age ended by 1850 and forcibly the rate had to increase. And this study is based only on 3 stations of the same basin (local scale).

[heldervelez]

I asked for specifics, on that one particular graph. That graph alone makes the case that there is a modern and dramatic problem quite obvious.

My question is - is the graph a lie, or is the problem real.

I found that graph highly questionable, and also my own opinion.
I think that it shows that Temperature increase precedes CO2 increase.
I think that it shows the famous 'hockey stick' feature and I found suficcient information to disregard it.
I digged the net and made my opinion. Anyone can do the same.

But that graph is not my question.

When I saw the James Balot video (he makes a living on that, yes?) what the images do stress is the ice going to the ocean. Impressive. Mile after mile of ice.

He cannot do a video, and make money, showing the inch by inch increase on top of Greenland and Antarctic that exceeds the loss of ice. Not impressive. Inch after inch of ice.

A 1000 years ago at the Medieval_Warm_Period , the temp was +-1ºC higher than now and, ... no CO2 increase, no industrial era..., no IPCC. And the vikings stared at those fiords,without ice, and wondering: 'Its the end of the world, as we know it'.

[parejkoj]

the year - lower-upper-central values of SLR from IPCC are :
by 1995 ?? - 94 cm - ??
by 2001 9 cm - 88 cm - 48 cm
by 2007 19 cm - 59 cm - ??

the maximum bound has been pregressively revised to lowers values.

The central value of 2001 prediction is 48 cm, far bellow the 20 cm.
Am I confused, as you said?

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

You are confusing the 1990 - 2100 prediction with the 1890-1990 predictions. Quoting from the 2001 IPCC "Scientific Basis" working group, which is already quoted almost verbatim on the exact page you linked!

The sum of these components indicates a rate of eustatic sea level rise (corresponding to a change in ocean volume) from 1910 to 1990 ranging from -0.8 to 2.2 mm/yr, with a central value of 0.7 mm/yr. The upper bound is close to the observational upper bound (2.0 mm/yr), but the central value is less than the observational lower bound (1.0 mm/yr), i.e., the sum of components is biased low compared to the observational estimates. The sum of components indicates an acceleration of only 0.2 mm/yr/century, with a range from -1.1 to +0.7 mm/yr/century, consistent with observational finding of no acceleration in sea level rise during the 20th century. The estimated rate of sea level rise from anthropogenic climate change from 1910 to 1990 (from modelling studies of thermal expansion, glaciers and ice sheets) ranges from 0.3 to 0.8 mm/yr. It is very likely that 20th century warming has contributed significantly to the observed sea level rise, through thermal expansion of sea water and widespread loss of land ice.

The IPCC predictions for the past century's sea level rise are less than the measured values. Both are positive, meaning that there has been significant, measurable sea level rise this past century. As shown in the first plot on wikipedia the page you linked!

google for 6m 2100 sea level rise ipcc
and look at the first results from ipcc
I do remember mediatic maps of my country (Portugal) swallowed by the water of estimate scenarios in press magazines.
I call it alarmist or 'algorist'

I'm not talking about the 2100 see level rise, I'm talking about the measured vs. predicted sea level rise from ~1900 to ~2000. Look at the first plot on the wikipedia page you linked to above, it shows the sea level rise of ~17cm quite clearly.

The growing rate of SLR on the 150 years was 0.013 mm/year^2
and IMMO it is a quite small value.
During the interglacial period the GSL has to grow, naturally.

Your opinion doesn't enter into it. Sea level has been relatively constant for the past several thousand years, as seen in the second plot on the Wikipedia page that you linked. Sea level rise of ~2mm/year is significant.

And in your next post, if you are suggesting that CO₂ is not a greenhouse gas, then you're going against about a century and a half of very solid physics.

[Ivan Viehoff]

It appears the planet is about to abruptly cool.

Whether that is true or not doesn't really bear on whether anthropogenic CO2 will make the earth's surface a warmer place than it otherwise would have been without it. We can have abrupt cooling, and AGW will make it less painful that it otherwise would have been for our civilisation.

For the sake of historic perspective on dire cooling predictions, it's useful to look at this exhibit, showing the history of cooling and warming predictions going back 100 years or so.

http://butnowyouknow.wordpress.com/t...ange-timeline/

Some interesting snippets:

- Most geologists think the world is getting warmer - by 1929

- Anthopogenic CO2 identified as a cause of the surface temperature being warmer than it otherwise would be - by 1938

- Predictions of the imminent arrival of a dire ice age - every time there was a downward wiggle in the temperature curve.

We can argue about what the exhibit it shows. For example, I disagree with what the author says it shows, and would advise him to be a bit more careful about the relative status of the different warming/cooling predictions. But whatever it shows, it surely illustrates the danger of drawing conclusions from surface temperature changes over short periods.

[Ari Jokimaki]

We can argue about what the exhibit it shows. For example, I disagree with what the author says it shows, and would advise him to be a bit more careful about the relative status of the different warming/cooling predictions. But whatever it shows, it surely illustrates the danger of drawing conclusions from surface temperature changes over short periods.

And the part about 1970's seems to be against what scientists at that time really thought (sure there were some talking about ice age, but majority seemed to say that there's anthropogenic warming coming up):
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/200...ions-of-1970s/

[Atraveller]

And the part about 1970's seems to be against what scientists at that time really thought (sure there were some talking about ice age, but majority seemed to say that there's anthropogenic warming coming up):
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/200...ions-of-1970s/

Does anyone know if there has been any research into the anthropogenic effect of air born lead?

Into the 1970's there did seem to be a cooling trend. In 1977 an amendment to the the clean air act was passed. Lead was removed as an additive to gasoline.

In his Documentary Al Gore says you can actually see the line in the ice cores where the clean air act was passed.

Is it possible that the air born lead was in part responsible for the cooling trend? What is the effect of air born lead? Is it an IR filter? Were we blocking sunlight with air born lead?

[parejkoj]

Is it possible that the air born lead was in part responsible for the cooling trend? What is the effect of air born lead? Is it an IR filter? Were we blocking sunlight with air born lead?

Not lead specifically, but all aerosols. The cooling effect of aerosols are a likely reason why Earth didn't warm as much from the ~1940s through the ~1970s. Aerosols are, in general, a net negative radiative forcing, but it is much harder to calculate their total effect than it is to calculate the forcing of CO₂.

But yes, laws that improve air quality by removing sulfur dioxide, diesel particulate emission, ash (from coal fires, burning forests, etc.), and other sources, also remove one of the impediments to global warming. But being able to breathe the air is rather helpful.

[Atraveller]

But yes, laws that improve air quality by removing sulfur dioxide, diesel particulate emission, ash (from coal fires, burning forests, etc.), and other sources, also remove one of the impediments to global warming. But being able to breathe the air is rather helpful.

Thanks for that - so based on your comments, we could "Terra form" this planet and reduce climate change by finding some inert aerosol - and then mandate that it be added to the atmophere, perhaps through gasoline - as a for instance?

I would expect we would have to have very accurate climate models - or negative temperature controls could very easily get out of control.

It might work out much cheaper in the long run to add these aerosols rather than disrupt a whole industry geared around fossil fuels....

[Ivan Viehoff]

the anthropogenic effect of air born lead?

We know what you meant. Which was "the meteorological or climatic effect of anthropogenic airborne lead". "Anthropogenic" means "created by man".

[SolusLupus]

Thanks for that - so based on your comments, we could "Terra form" this planet and reduce climate change by finding some inert aerosol - and then mandate that it be added to the atmophere, perhaps through gasoline - as a for instance?

I would expect we would have to have very accurate climate models - or negative temperature controls could very easily get out of control.

It might work out much cheaper in the long run to add these aerosols rather than disrupt a whole industry geared around fossil fuels....

Why is "disrupting a whole industry" so bad? Fossil fuels will not last forever; it seems a good idea to start implementing some alternatives now, instead of waiting until just the last minute.

[Stroller]

http://i34.tinypic.com/dev5ld.png
Data from KNMI website. NOAA hasn't updated their graphs for some reason...

Exactly as I predicted, OHC is falling further during this long solar minimum. Sea surface temperatures have been high recently. Heat is leaving the ocean rapidly.

After the end of the current mild el nino, global temperature will fall to below jan 2007 levels within the next 14-18 months.

That is a prediction derived from my calculations on OHC/sunspot activity. I'll revisit it at that time

[Gillianren]

I thought William might do with a little light reading.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...-not-pollutan/

[Trakar]

http://i34.tinypic.com/dev5ld.png
Data from KNMI website. NOAA hasn't updated their graphs for some reason...

In general such graphs are only updated every year or two, as longer term trends are more relevent and important to climate studies than month-to-month, or even year-to-year variations.

If, however, you are merely looking for shorter term data, the following is rather easy to come by:

http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/int...eat_tlon.shtml

http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/ana...tent_index.txt

http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/

Exactly what is the scale on your graph and how do you explain the discrepancies between what it seems to portray and the data values and graphs portrayed in these NOAA sites?

[Stroller]

In general such graphs are only updated every year or two, as longer term trends are more relevent and important to climate studies than month-to-month, or even year-to-year variations.

If, however, you are merely looking for shorter term data, the following is rather easy to come by:

http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/int...eat_tlon.shtml

http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/ana...tent_index.txt

http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/

Exactly what is the scale on your graph and how do you explain the discrepancies between what it seems to portray and the data values and graphs portrayed in these NOAA sites?

Hi Trakar. Your first two links are for equatorial heat content not global.
The last is global but is a static non-updated graph as presented in the Levitus et al 2009 paper linked on that page.

The KNMI data I showed is exactly the same data as used by Levitus et al continually updated with the latest information from ARGO. Perhaps you could clarify what the "discrepancies" are you mention.

The scale is that used by KNMI and expresses Ocean Heat content in GJ/m^2 rather than the global total expressed in J by Levitus et al and the NOAA.

[Ari Jokimaki]

Note how Stroller avoids to give you a decent link to the original data publication (Stroller brings this up probably because this exactly the same graph has just been given in Tisdale's blog).

As we can see from the Tisdale's blog entry, this new data value is so recent, that it is not even up in the NODC yet. Here's a note from the NODC website about the new data:

Note: new data added after the release of the WOD09 have not gone through the full set of quality control
procedures and should be considered preliminary. The set of all casts that fall into this category are also
available on the WOD updates page.

And yet, here we go again, blog entries and spreading the Message to the world based on one preliminary number.

By the way, there is not even a sign of a drop here (CPC Monthly Ocean Briefing - Upper 300m Heat Content):
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/GOD...00_ts_13mo.gif

[Stroller]

Note how Stroller avoids...

And yet, here we go again, blog entries and spreading the Message to the world.

[/url]

Here we go again with the ascription of motivation, the impoliteness, the unpleasantness.

Please learn some manners Ari.

[Stroller]

The 300m data Ari linked would seem to indicate that the high sea surface temperatures recently seen are being fed from below as heat leaves the deeper ocean.

There is a low level of scientific understanding regarding the transport of energy through the vertical column in the ocean and a better understanding is crucial to a correct interpretation of the oceans heat storage and release dynamics.

There is a free draft copy of the Von Schukmann et al paper.

http://www.euro-argo.eu/content/down...09_inpress.pdf

This is fascinating. Von Schukman et al find a rise in the ocean heat content 2004-2008 to a depth of 2000m (The Argo buoys dive limit). So if the preliminary ARGO data to 700m is showing sharp falls in all basins (not a "single number" as Ari said), yet the deeper ocean is warming, and the top 300m is fairly static in it's equilibrium of transferring the heat from the 300-700m zone to the atmosphere, this illustrates something important about the way energy is transported through the upper ocean.

It also raises interesting questions about the warming in the deeper ocean. How would heat from the 300-700m depth range be going both upwards and downwards at the same time?

I'm open minded and ready to learn.

[Ari Jokimaki]

Another interesting thing from NODC website:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/WOD/bt_bias_notes.html

Think twice before taking brand new values from there as truth. And even if that latest value would be correct, we wouldn't have any evidence (yet) that it is anything else than an anomalous drop, of which there are similar examples in that same graph. Yet, we have factual statements here about heat leaving ocean rapidly. This is once again an example of weather being mistaken for climate, and even that with one (so far) obscure data source.

[parejkoj]

Stoller, I've got a few questions for you.

1. Do you consider CO₂ to be a greenhouse gas? If not, what evidence do you have to disprove the past ~150 years of molecular physics?

2. If you think CO₂ is a greenhouse gas, what do you think is the correct value of the climate forcing (in W/m²) for a doubling of atmospheric CO₂, and why do you think that is the correct value?

3. Given your answer to question 2, what do you think the present global temperature anomaly should be, given the ~35% increase in atmospheric CO₂ since the mid 1800s?

[Stroller]

Stoller, I've got a few questions for you.

Hi Parejoky, I'll try to answer for you.

1. Do you consider CO₂ to be a greenhouse gas? If not, what evidence do you have to disprove the past ~150 years of molecular physics?

A greenhouse is an poor analogy for the action of trace gases such as co2 in the atmosphere. Water vapour is much more prevalent and effective, and absorbs radiation at roughly the same wavelengths, but can act as a positive or negative forcing depending on factors such as ionisation, air pressure, aerosol levels, time of day, season of year, latitude of location, height of cloud etc.

2. If you think CO₂ is a greenhouse gas, what do you think is the correct value of the climate forcing (in W/m²) for a doubling of atmospheric CO₂, and why do you think that is the correct value?

If changes in co2 levels have any effect on temperature at all in the real world given the other processes which might compensate for them, it would be a complex task to quantify them, since we would have to understand and be able to quantify all the other effects which are in play. Which we do not and can not at present. A couple of other inconvenient facts call into question the effectiveness of co2 as a climate forcing factor:
i) Changes in co2 levels lag behind changes in temperature at all timescales. Despite attempted rationalisations, this presents a basic difficulty for the co2 driven climate theory with regards to cause and effect.
ii) Even according to the co2 theorists own theory, co2 isn't a particularly effective greenhouse gas unless increases in it's levels produce much bigger increases in the more potent greenhouse gases such as water vapour and methane. Neither of these two gases atmospheric concentrations have increased in line with modeled expectations.

3. Given your answer to question 2, what do you think the present global temperature anomaly should be, given the ~35% increase in atmospheric CO₂ since the mid 1800s?

At the philosophical level, I don't see the up and downs of temperature as 'anomalous'. Variation is quite natural, historically and empirically verified, and is the usual way the Earth continues it's course through history.
At the empirical level, I would say that going by observations of the past, and utilising some deductional and inductional reasoning, it seems likely to me that we are just past the top of several mutually additional positive phases of several natural cycles (E.g. Solar, Oceanic), and that temperatures are likely to fall on the average for a while now. Maybe 20-50 years or so. There are a couple of climate scientists such as Swanson and Tsonis who also think this is a strong possibility looking 30 years out.

I will happily engage in polite and open minded conversation about these points, but I won't engage with people who are rude, uncivil, impolite, unpleasant or adopt a litigious tone.

[Stroller]

If I may ask a question in return.

I've looked at several papers on co2's alleged radiative forcing, but none seem to take into account the offset it would cause. Around 80W/m^2 of incoming solar radiation at the top of the atmosphere is longwave radiation in the range of co2's absorption spectrum. Logic dictates that around half of that which is absorbed by co2 would be re-radiated back into space.

Therefore, a sizeable proportion of any effect additional co2 has on limiting the escape of longwave radiation from the Earth's surface would be offset by the same co2 preventing some of the sun's energy reaching the Earth's surface.

Why is this not accounted for in the radiation budget data I've been shown?

[Trakar]

Your first two links are for equatorial heat content not global.

your statements seemed to be saying that NOAA was not updating any of their Ocean Heat content data over some unspecified and curiously incongruous period of time. If I misunderstood your indistinctions, I apologize for my own perceptual ineptness.

The last is global but is a static non-updated graph as presented in the Levitus et al 2009 paper linked on that page.

As per my post, my reference was to the data, not the graph, which is largely incidental in any serious examination of data. The point being, that the data is presented through the second quarter of 2009, and we are just entering the fourth qtr of 2009, so NOAA is not obviously withholding any data that I can perceive, but then I don't normally expect data to be analyzed, verified and released within days of the end of a qtr. In general, quarterly data is a seasonal blip on its own and can only be accurately interpretted as it is integrated into 30+ year trends. Now if there were a 5 or 10 year period where there were no data or updates, I could see your commentary, but here we are 11 days into the fourth quarter and they don't have the third quarter data available yet! Surely you jest!

The KNMI data I showed is exactly the same data as used by Levitus et al continually updated with the latest information from ARGO. Perhaps you could clarify what the "discrepancies" are you mention.

The scale is that used by KNMI and expresses Ocean Heat content in GJ/m^2 rather than the global total expressed in J by Levitus et al and the NOAA.

The discrepancies in the graphs are seem obvious. As to the scales, I apologize for my own indistinctness, I am wondering about the scale of the abcissa (x-axis) on your graph, and to my inspection, the scale of both the ordinal and the abcissa are different from that used in the Levitus (et al) paper, though I could be mistaken. please demonstrate precisely which graph in the Levitus paper your graph represents a simple extension of.

[Trakar]

The 300m data Ari linked would seem to indicate that the high sea surface temperatures recently seen are being fed from below as heat leaves the deeper ocean..

Precisely what about this data in isolation, that makes it "seem" to you that it is the result of heat from below? What information in this data allows you to distinguish it from heat that is absorbed from the atmospheric interface? Are these directional flows actually indicated in this data, or is this a personal interpretation you are overlaying onto the data?

[dmr81]

Changes in co2 levels lag behind changes in temperature at all timescales.

So the reason the level of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased isn't because we've released huge amounts of it by burning fossil fuels, it's because the temperature has increased!

temperatures are likely to fall on the average for a while now. Maybe 20-50 years or so. There are a couple of climate scientists such as Swanson and Tsonis who also think this is a strong possibility looking 30 years out.

it’s important to note that we are not talking about global cooling
[...]
We hypothesize that the established pre-1998 trend is the true forced warming signal, and that the climate system effectively overshot this signal in response to the 1997/98 El Niño. This overshoot is in the process of radiatively dissipating, and the climate will return to its earlier defined, greenhouse gas-forced warming signal. If this hypothesis is correct, the era of consistent record-breaking global mean temperatures will not resume until roughly 2020.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...l-variability/

[Stroller]

Precisely what about this data in isolation, that makes it "seem" to you that it is the result of heat from below? What information in this data allows you to distinguish it from heat that is absorbed from the atmospheric interface? Are these directional flows actually indicated in this data, or is this a personal interpretation you are overlaying onto the data?

Compared to the continual emission of longwave radiation from the ocean surface the amount absorbed from the air ocean interface via conduction is miniscule. Radiation from the atmosphere doesn't penetrate the surface of water beyond it's own wavelength. This causes concentration of energy on the surface of the water which causes the prompt evaporation of water molecules, which then rise into the atmosphere, being much less dense than air.

In short, the atmosphere doesn't heat the ocean to any noteworthy extent, the ocean heats the atmosphere, by emitting a large number of Joules of long wave radiative energy into it.

Unless you know of another viable physical mechanism?

Quick Praisee. The Sun warms the ocean, the ocean warms the air, the water vapour and some other gases in the air including co2 reradiate some heat energy to the surface and lose the rest to space.

Agreed so far?

[Stroller]

So the reason the level of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased isn't because we've released huge amounts of it by burning fossil fuels, it's because the temperature has increased!

I was refrring to the timing of inflexion points, i.e. changes, and what cause them, not about relative levels, which have a non linear relationship.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...l-variability/

And I was referring to their published work, not Swanson's comment on a blog.

Good link though, I like this quote by the author of the headline post the best:

I think the interesting question raised (though not definitively answered) by this line of work is the extent to which some of the pause in warming mid-century might have been more due to decadal ocean variability rather than aerosols than is commonly thought. If that is the case, then a pause or temporary reduction in warming rate could recur even if aerosols are unchanged. Learning how to detect and interpret such things is important, lest a temporary pause be confused with evidence for low climate sensitivity. --raypierre]

I wonder if it has occurred to Ray Pierre-Humbug that the two reductions in warming rate caused by the oceans he posits must logically have an intervening period in which the warming rate is increased by the oceans. And since this wasn't admitted or taken into account before, it must necessarily have an effect on the radiative forcing value for co2 and climate sensitivity.