Archives par mot-clé : Ocean

Conditions for formation of Super El Ninos determined

by Anthony Watts, July 12, 2018 in WUWT


A University of Aizu team has identified two distinct Indo-Pacific processes shaping the unique features and extraordinary ferocity of super El Ninos. A systematic analysis of these processes and their interactions will improve forecasts of the elusive super El Ninos, the researchers claim.

Extremely warm  are a notable feature of the super El Ninos that occurred in 1972, 1982, and 1997. The fact that Pacific Ocean processes responsible for generating regular El Ninos could not explain this key signature of super El Ninos came as a big shock,” says Dachao Jin, co-author of the study.

Ocean Temperature – Part 1

by Irek Zawadzki, July 10, 2018 in SkepticalScience


How have we measured the temperature of the ocean’s upper layer in the last 150 years? How does understanding physical processes and observational errors help to standardise climate data and understand climate change?

Sea surface temperature (SST) is also one of the climate indices with the longest histories of direct measurements. Because ocean makes up about 70% of the total Earth’s surface, changes in the temperature of its surface are a key factor for determining the global temperature of the planet’s surface.

New Report: Recycling Plastic Is Making Ocean Litter Worse

by GWPF, June 28, 2018


* Most of the plastic waste comes from just a few countries, mostly in Asia and Africa.
* 25% is “leakage” from Asian waste management processes — the rest is waste that has never been collected, but is simply thrown into rivers.
* But European countries ship inject huge quantities of waste into Asian waste management streams, ostensibly for recycling. As much as 20% — millions of tons every year — ends up in the oceans and will continue to do so.
* Since the Chinese banned waste imports at the start of the year, shipments have been diverted to other Asian countries with even weaker environmental controls (Figure 1).
* EU recycling is therefore a major contributor to marine waste and increasing recycling will therefore simply increase marine litter.

Full paper .pdf here

Why life on Earth first got big

by University of Cambridge, June 25, 2018 in ScienceDaily


Some of the earliest complex organisms on Earth — possibly some of the earliest animals to exist — got big not to compete for food, but to spread their offspring as far as possible.

The research, led by the University of Cambridge, found that the most successful organisms living in the oceans more than half a billion years ago were the ones that were able to ‘throw’ their offspring the farthest, thereby colonising their surroundings. The results are reported in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Prior to the Ediacaran period, between 635 and 541 million years ago, life forms were microscopic in size, but during the Ediacaran, large, complex organisms first appeared, some of which — such as a type of organism known as rangeomorphs — grew as tall as two metres.

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See also here

Volcanic activity, declining ocean oxygen triggered mass extinction of ancient organisms

by Florida State University, June 11, 2018 in ScienceDaily


Global climate change, fueled by skyrocketing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, is siphoning oxygen from today’s oceans at an alarming pace — so fast that scientists aren’t entirely sure how the planet will respond.

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Millions of years ago, scientists discovered, powerful volcanoes pumped Earth’s atmosphere full of carbon dioxide, draining the oceans of oxygen and driving a mass extinction of marine organisms.

Ocean indicators suggest CO2 isn’t the strongest driver of climate

by Anthony Watts, June 6, 2018 in WUWT


We have mentioned countless times on this blog that the warming oceans are evidence that CO2 is not the cause of global warming. To understand the climate you must first understand the oceans. The oceans control the global climate. As the oceans warm, they warm and alter the humidity of the atmosphere above them. The problem is, as we have pointed out countless times, CO2’s only defined mechanism by which to affect climate change is through the thermalization of LWIR between 13 and 18µ.

LWIR between 13 and 18µ doesn’t penetrate or warm the oceans. Visible radiation, mainly from the high energy blue end of the spectrum does. CO2 is transparent to incoming visible radiation. The energy stored in the atmosphere and land is insignificant when compared to the oceans. The oceans contain 2,000x the energy of the atmosphere, so small changes to the oceans can mean big changes in the atmospheric temperature. The oceans also produce vast amounts of CO2 (20 x the amount man produces), and the most abundant and potent greenhouse gas, water vapor.

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Cooling Ocean Air Temps

by Ron Cruz, June 5, 2018 in ScienceMatters


Presently sea surface temperatures (SST) are the best available indicator of heat content gained or lost from earth’s climate system.  Enthalpy is the thermodynamic term for total heat content in a system, and humidity differences in air parcels affect enthalpy.  Measuring water temperature directly avoids distorted impressions from air measurements.  In addition, ocean covers 71% of the planet surface and thus dominates surface temperature estimates.  Eventually we will likely have reliable means of recording water temperatures at depth.

Recently, Dr. Ole Humlum reported from his research that air temperatures lag 2-3 months behind changes in SST.  He also observed that changes in CO2 atmospheric concentrations lag behind SST by 11-12 months.  This latter point is addressed in a previous post Who to Blame for Rising CO2?

The May update to HadSST3 will appear later this month, but in the meantime we can look at lower troposphere temperatures (TLT) from UAHv6 which are already posted for May. The temperature record is derived from microwave sounding units (MSU) on board satellites like the one pictured above… (…)

Tiny fossils unlock clues to Earth’s climate half a billion years ago

by University of Leicester, May 9, 2018 in ScienceDaily


The research, published in Science Advances, suggests that early animals diversified within a climate similar to that in which the dinosaurs lived.

This interval in time is known for the ‘Cambrian explosion’, the time during which representatives of most of the major animal groups first appear in the fossil record. These include the first animals to produce shells, and it is these shelly fossils that the scientists used.

Data from the tiny fossil shells, and data from new climate model runs, show that high latitude (~65 °S) sea temperatures were in excess of 20 °C. This seems very hot, but it is similar to more recent, better understood, greenhouse climates like that of the Late Cretaceous Period.

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Plateau in Ocean Air Temps

by Ron Clutz, May 8, 2018 in ScienceMatters


Years ago, Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. explained why sea surface temperatures (SST) were the best indicator of heat content gained or lost from earth’s climate system.  Enthalpy is the thermodynamic term for total heat content in a system, and humidity differences in air parcels affect enthalpy.  Measuring water temperature directly avoids distorted impressions from air measurements.  In addition, ocean covers 71% of the planet surface and thus dominates surface temperature estimates.

More recently, Dr. Ole Humlum reported from his research that air temperatures lag 2-3 months behind changes in SST.  He also observed that changes in CO2 atmospheric concentrations lag behind SST by 11-12 months.  This latter point is addressed in a previous post Who to Blame for Rising CO2?

The 60-year oscillation revisited

by Javier, April 26, 2018 in WUWT


It is a well-known feature of climate change that since 1850 multiple climate datasets present a ~ 60-year oscillation. I recently wrote about it in the 7th chapter of my Nature Unbound series. This oscillation is present in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), Arctic Oscillation (AO), North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), Length of Day (LOD), and Global (GST) and Northern Hemisphere (NHT) temperatures, with different lags.

To me this oscillation is not a cycle because prior to 1850 it had a more variable period and it is not well identified in LIA records. Since the origin of this oscillation is unknown, models have a hard time reproducing it and it is all but ignored by the IPCC. It is a big oscillation with an amplitude of ± 0.3 °C in NHT (0.1-0.2°C in GST; figure 2). While the long-term temperature trend is unaffected by it, there is a large effect on the 30-year trends. If this oscillation is considered, most of the climate alarmism vaporizes.

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Ocean Temps Falling Feb. 2018

by Ron Clutz, March, 2018 in ScienceMatters


The best context for understanding decadal temperature changes comes from the world’s sea surface temperatures (SST), for several reasons:

  • The ocean covers 71% of the globe and drives average temperatures;
  • SSTs have a constant water content, (unlike air temperatures), so give a better reading of heat content variations;
  • A major El Nino was the dominant climate feature in recent years.

HadSST is generally regarded as the best of the global SST data sets, and so the temperature story here comes from that source, the latest version being HadSST3.  More on what distinguishes HadSST3 from other SST products at the end.

 

 

 

Another Icon Of Global Warming Drowns

by Tony Heller, March 27, 2018 in CimateChangeDispatch


The key to understanding this can be found in the 2004 Smithsonian article. The Tuvalu story (like everything else with global warming) has always been about left-wing politics and money, not science.

But not all scientists agree that Tuvalu’s future is underwater. Some critics have branded island leaders as opportunists angling for foreign handouts and special recognition for would-be “environmental refugees” who, they say, are exploiting the crisis to gain entry to New Zealand and Australia. Others have even said that people and organizations sympathetic to Tuvalu are “eco-imperialists” intent on imposing their alarmist environmental views on the rest of the world.

And of course the same fake story in the Maldives, which were supposed to be underwater by 2018.

Sea Level to Rise by 1.2 Metres by 2300 – So What?

by A. Cockroft, February 24, 2018 in WUWT


Firstly let me say that I am not one of the most technical writers you will see here. I regard myself pretty much as a layman despite studying Geology, Mathematics and Computer Science at University.

So you won’t find all the references to papers (well not many), nor exact scientific formulae. I simply write what I have logically deduced. For any who disagree, or have value to add, please use the Comments below.

So my stance is “SO WHAT”!

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New Study Identifies Thermometer for the Past Global Ocean

by UC San Diego, January 4, 2018


There is a new way to measure the average temperature of the ocean thanks to researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. In an article published in the Jan. 4, 2018, issue of the journal Nature, geoscientist Jeff Severinghaus and colleagues at Scripps Oceanography and institutions in Switzerland and Japan detailed their ground-breaking approach.

Further proof El Ninos are fueled by deep-sea geological heat flow

by Janes E Kamis, January, 27 in CliateChangeDispatch


The 2014-2017 El Nino “warm blob” was likely created, maintained, and partially recharged on two separate occasions by massive pulses of super-heated and chemically charged seawater from deep-sea geological features in the western North Pacific Ocean. This strongly supports the theory all El Ninos are naturally occurring and geological in origin. Climate change / global warming had nothing to do with generating, rewarming, intensifying, or increasing the frequency of the 2014-2017 El Nino or any previous El Nino.

If proven correct, this would revolutionize climatology and key aspects of many interrelated sciences such as oceanography, marine biology, glaciology, biogeochemistry, and most importantly meteorology. Information supporting a geological origin of El Ninos is diverse, reliable, and can be placed into five general categories as follows: (…)

See also here

12 New Papers: North Atlantic, Pacific, And Southern Oceans Are Cooling As Glaciers Thicken, Gain Mass

by K Richard, September 11, 2017 in NoTricksZone


Contrary to expectations, climate scientists continue to report that large regions of the Earth have not been warming in recent decades.

According to Dieng et al. (2017), for example, the global oceans underwent a slowdown, a pause, or even a slight cooling trend during 2003 to 2013.  This  undermines expectations from climate models which presume the increase in radiative forcing from human CO2 emissions should substantially increase ocean temperatures.

The authors indicate that the recent trends in ocean temperatures “may just reflect a 60-year natural cycle“, the AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation), and not follow radiative forcing trends.

Ocean surface temperature variability: Large model–data differences at decadal and longer periods

by T Laepple and P Huybers, July 14, 2014 in PNAS


Determining magnitudes of sea surface temperature variability is important for attributing past and predicting future changes in climate, and generally requires the use of proxies to constrain multidecadal and longer timescales of variability. We report a multiproxy estimate of sea surface temperature variability that is consistent between proxy types and with instrumental estimates but strongly diverges from climate model simulations toward longer timescales. At millennial timescales, model−data discrepancies reach two orders of magnitude in the tropics, indicating substantial problems with models or proxies, or both, and highlighting a need to better determine the variability of sea surface temperatures.

More Research Points To “Temperature Decline In The Coming Decades And Centuries”

by P Gosselin, December 15, 2017 in NoTricksZone


Geologist Dr. Norman Page left a comment which I’ve decided to upgrade to a post. In it he writes solar and La Nina observations fit well with his recent paper showing that climate is controlled by natural orbital and solar activity cycles.

Dr. Page is among a growing number of scientists who share the general view that natural solar and oceanic cycles are mostly driving the climate, just as they always have in the past.

German Scientists Call Recent Sea Level Rise Claims “Fijigate”, …Hyped Up To Generate Money

by Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt, November 15, 2017 in  NoTricksZone


After a peak in 2012 the level went down by about 10 cm by mid 2017. It is very much related to natural variations, in sync with the El Ninos (low levels) and La Ninas (high levels).

So what remains of the climate change horror stories in connection to the Fiji Islands? (…)

Oceans driving warming this century, same as in 1930s

by Ron Clutz, November 8, 2017, in ClimateChangeDispatch


The graph [after the jump] is noisy, but the density is needed to see the seasonal patterns in the oceanic fluctuations. Previous posts focused on the rise and fall of the last El Nino starting in 2015.

This post takes a longer view, encompassing the significant 1998 El Nino and since. The color schemes are retained for Global, Tropics, NH and SH anomalies. 

Despite the long time frame, I have kept the monthly data (rather than yearly averages) because of interesting shifts between January and July.

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Northern South China Sea SST changes over the last two millennia and possible linkage with solar irradiance

by Deming Kong et al., November 30, 2017 in Quaternary International


High-resolution surface temperature records over the last two millennia are crucial to understanding the forcing and response mechanism of Earth’s climate. Here we report a bidecadal-resolution sea surface temperature (SST) record based on long-chain alkenones in a gravity sediment core retrieved from the northern South China Sea. SST values varied between 26.7 and 27.5 °C, with a total variability ∼1 °C over the last 2000 years.

Oxygen-18 Stability in Foraminifera fossils, implications in paleoclimatology

by Andy May, November 4, 2017


18O is a rare isotope of oxygen. The ratio of 18O to the normal 16O in foraminifera fossils (“forams”) can be used to estimate paleo-ocean temperatures. Higher values mean lower temperatures. A recent article on geologypage.com (here) led me to Bernard, et al., 2017, which has experimental data that suggest 18O concentrations can be altered in fossils by solid-state diffusion after fossilization. This can corrupt the measurement and the resulting calculated temperature