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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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 Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2017 3:09 pm Post subject: Warming oceans |
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I first posted about this about 2 years ago, after hearing a talk by a Scripps professor. Read it and weep:
| Quote: | The world is getting warmer every year, thanks to climate change — but where exactly most of that heat is going may be a surprise.
As a stunning early spring blooms across the United States, just weeks after scientists declared 2016 the hottest year on record, it’s easy to forget that all the extra warmth in the air accounts for only a fraction of the heat produced by greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, more than 90 percent of it gets stored in the ocean. And now, scientists think they’ve calculated just how much the ocean has warmed in the past few decades.
[U.S. scientists declare 2016 the hottest year on record. That makes three in a row.]
A new study, out Friday in the journal Science Advances, suggests that since 1960, a staggering 337 zetajoules of energy — that’s 337 followed by 21 zeros — has been added to the ocean in the form of heat. And most of it has occurred since 1980.
“The ocean is the memory of all of the past climate change,” said study co-author Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
The new value is a number that significantly exceeds previous estimates, Trenberth noted. Compared with ocean warming estimates produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the new values are about 13 percent greater. This is the result of a new methodology for estimating ocean warming, involving a series of steps “that really make this paper different than previous ones,” Trenberth told The Washington Post.
In previous decades, there have been a lot of challenges associated with monitoring temperature changes in the ocean. Before the year 2000 or so, most monitoring instruments had to be deployed from ships. This mean that scientists only had the most reliable data for parts of the world that lie along major shipping routes.
In the past 15 years, though, scientists have developed the “Argo” network, a system of free-drifting devices that are designed to periodically adjust their buoyancy, so they can sink several thousand meters into the sea, collect measurements, and then rise back up to the surface. There are now about 3,500 of these devices deployed throughout the world’s oceans, leading to a much better dispersal of observations.
The new study, which was led by Lijing Cheng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and included other scientists from that institution, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, employs a new methodology for using both the recent Argo measurements and past observations from ships to produce a continuous series of estimates from 1960 to 2015.
The scientists incorporated an updated database of pre-Argo measurements that have been corrected for certain biases, as well as information from climate models, and extended existing observations of ocean conditions taken at specific locations to larger areas of the sea. They then conducted a comparison of recent Argo data with measurements created using their new methodology and found that the method produces true-to-life results.
The results suggest that the ocean has been sucking up more heat than previous research has indicated. In fact, according to Trenberth, the new estimates help explain observations of global sea-level rise that scientists have had difficulty accounting for until now.
A certain percentage of sea-level rise can be attributed to the expansion of ocean water, caused by rising water temperatures, while the rest comes from melting glaciers. Scientists have good estimates of how much melting ice is going into the ocean, but they’ve come up a bit short in the past in trying to reconcile the rest of the planet’s observed sea-level rise with their estimates of how much the ocean has warmed in recent decades.
“This actually fills in the gap,” Trenberth said.
The study also suggests that the extra heat is not being stored evenly throughout the oceans. The Atlantic and Southern oceans, in particular, are the biggest new heat reservoirs, the results indicate, storing about 59 percent of the heat despite accounting for less than half of all the ocean area in the world.
The researchers think the reason has to do with a major ocean current system known as “overturning circulation.” This system is kind of like a giant ocean conveyor belt that runs warm water from the equator toward the poles, where it cools, sinks to the bottom of the oceans and flows back in the other direction. The system helps transport both heat around the world, and the overturning process is pronounced in both the Atlantic and Southern ocean waters.
While the paper’s staggering new results reaffirm the importance of the ocean as a climate change buffer — without it, much of that heat would remain in the atmosphere or the earth’s land masses — it’s certainly not without consequences. Rising ocean temperatures are believed to be a major cause of the mass coral bleaching that’s occurred all over the world over the past several years, in conjunction with an unusually strong El Niño beginning in 2015.
It’s still unclear how other organisms might be affected, but many marine animals thrive best within specific temperature ranges. Many marine biologists believe that continued warming, along with other climate-related changes such as ocean acidification, may force certain species to migrate to cooler or deeper areas in the future.
Trenberth added that increasing heat moving into the surface of the ocean could also lead to “dead spots” in the ocean — places where layers of warm water get stuck on top of layers of cooler water. When this stratification happens, it can become more difficult for the waters to mix and churn as they normally would, a process that helps stir up nutrients and oxygen that are vital to marine organisms.
All this is to say that climate change affects far more than just our air temperature — and the new study documents its clear progression in places thousands of meters below the surface of the sea. The results also come at a sensitive point for ocean and climate research, just a week after The Washington Post revealed a proposal from the Trump administration that calls for significant budget cuts for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including a 26 percent cut for its Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. It’s the primary research arm of NOAA, Trenberth pointed out, and such drastic cuts to the program could mean even basic observations programs like Argo may no longer continue.
“As a result, the information will not even be there,” Trenberth said. “That would be tragic.”
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Article by Chelsea Harvy. When added to the dramatic increase in acidification as the oceans absorb CO2, slowing warming slightly, the impact on the marine environment is devastating. It is a mystery to me how watermen can deny the truth and support the destruction of our oceans. |
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MalibuGuru
Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9300
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2017 3:26 pm Post subject: |
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Meanwhile there are blizzards on the east coast, more ice in both poles, and unremarkable wet weater an huge snow pack in the Sierra.
No doubt that SURFACE WATER TEMPS are higher, but no proof that thousands of feet have change 1 iota. . |
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pueno
Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2017 3:26 pm Post subject: Re: Warming oceans |
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| mac wrote: | I first posted about this about 2 years ago, after hearing a talk by a Scripps professor.
Article by Chelsea Harvy. When added to the dramatic increase in acidification as the oceans absorb CO2, slowing warming slightly, the impact on the marine environment is devastating. It is a mystery to me how watermen can deny the truth and support the destruction of our oceans. |
Mikey won't like this...
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2017 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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| MalibuGuru wrote: | Meanwhile there are blizzards on the east coast, more ice in both poles, and unremarkable wet weater an huge snow pack in the Sierra.
No doubt th
at SURFACE WATER TEMPS are higher, but no proof that thousands of feet have change 1 iota. . |
You wouldn't know proof if it bit you on the ass. |
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J64TWB
Joined: 24 Dec 2013
Posts: 1685
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2017 9:26 pm Post subject: |
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Bard knows more the entire scientific community one of the worlds leaders in ocean sciences. From the NOAA equivalent in Australia, the worlds leader in Ocean research and where real (Alpha) watermen are found. Bard has never even heard of them.
https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/OandA
But then again, Bard's an idiot of the highest order. |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2017 10:17 pm Post subject: |
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Tons of work, going back more than a decade, documents the amount of heat stored in the ocean. I don't think
bard understands exponents either. Here's one: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/researchers-create-means-monitor-anthropogenic-global-warming-real-time
And another, about the time I posted: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/distinct-rise-global-ocean-temperatures-detected
And another:
| Quote: | | “We continue to be stunned at how rapidly the ocean is warming,” Sarah Gille, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography professor, said when we spoke with her earlier this year. “Extra heat means extra sea level rise, since warmer water is less dense, so a warmer ocean expands.” |
And for the Trump alikes, who can't read but like videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWAneGK-grE |
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MalibuGuru
Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9300
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2017 11:22 pm Post subject: |
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| bluefish1 wrote: | Bard knows more the entire scientific community one of the worlds leaders in ocean sciences. From the NOAA equivalent in Australia, the worlds leader in Ocean research and where real (Alpha) watermen are found. Bard has never even heard of them.
https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/OandA
But then again, Bard's an idiot of the highest order. |
Words of wisdom from the numbskull brewfish. I suppose you know that the climate models have been off for decades.
These models are so complicated that no one understands them...in particular brewfish and Berkeley. |
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GURGLETROUSERS
Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 2643
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| Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 3:54 am Post subject: |
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Heat escapes from earth to space by radiation. (Yes, I know it is a complex process which computer models cannot accurately grapple with, as yet.) The fact remains that the hotter the earth gets, the greater the increase in radiation loss. Heat stored in the oceans must eventually 'leak' into the atmosphere which, in common sense terms, must have a natural balance factor which is probably defined by our distance from the sun. The temperature range may be quite large, but I maintain that, owing to our 'Godilocks' distance, a runaway greenhouse effect, as on Venus, is not possible. If it was possible, it would have happened long ago, well before even Pre-Cambrian times.
The earth will eventually join Venus in that effect in another couple of billion years, when the sun's radiation has steadily increased, pushing the 'Goldilocks' zone out towards Mars. But I leave the problem of mass evacuation and transportation of the human race to the red planet, to distant future generations. Not that it will ever come to that! Nuclear armageddon will solve the human problem, as it surely must, and in the not so distant future.
Till then, I will continue to need a thicker wet suit every winter. Bloody North Sea just won't warm up! |
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LHDR
Joined: 22 Jun 2007
Posts: 528
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| Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 10:49 am Post subject: |
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| Big shout-out to GT. Nobody beats the Brits when it comes to naming their vessels. A great research submarine for measuring effects of global warming on the oceans. https://goo.gl/JxLpVF |
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nw30
Joined: 21 Dec 2008
Posts: 6485
Location: The eye of the universe, Cen. Cal. coast
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| Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 10:50 am Post subject: |
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A new thread about global warming, mac must have some new news to report.
Nope, just a rehash of some older stuff.
This thread should be called "Some older stuff to consider while we are anxiously waiting for something newer to worry about".
Now for something current~
In our local paper this weekend, our resident meteorologist and weather guy, had an article about how we are going to be getting more fog this year, than last year, due to colder ocean temps along the west coast.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/weather/weather-watch/article138003163.html
What do you want to bet that because Ca. is trying to be the greenest state in the country, that it is actually dropping the ocean temps along our coast!
Way to go California!!!!! |
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