Ocean temperatures

[Juan C. García]

I did not find this topic. I am not an expert, but it is important to have it.

Startling new research finds large buildup of heat in the oceans, suggesting a faster rate of global warming.

Over the past quarter-century, Earth’s oceans have retained 60 percent more heat each year than scientists previously had thought, said Laure Resplandy, a geoscientist at Princeton University who led the startling study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/10/31/startling-new-research-finds-large-buildup-heat-oceans-suggesting-faster-rate-global-warming/

The new research does not measure the ocean’s temperature directly. Rather, it measures the volume of gases, specifically oxygen and carbon dioxide, that have escaped the ocean in recent decades and headed into the atmosphere as it heats up. The method offered scientists a reliable indicator of ocean temperature change because it reflects a fundamental behavior of a liquid when heated.

[Hefaistos]

This is a really important research paper with enormous policy implications. Because of the increased heat already stored in the ocean, the maximum emissions that the world can produce while still avoiding a warming of two degrees Celsius would have to be reduced by 25 percent.

“I feel like this is a triumph of Earth-system science. That we could get confirmation from atmospheric gases of ocean heat content is extraordinary,” said Joellen Russell, a professor and oceanographer at the University of Arizona. “You’ve got the A team here on this paper.”

Open access at:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0651-8.epdf?referrer_access_token=CaC3iFrPBg-kkAuZwE4xxtRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PPM6F5Tw--xUcDaVyo5KYP7_G9gTDd9jkXQCGLmYVcdiHz9wkwN0E6N2nDZlq4WDQgItGi5ylVScf0yzGnaEVfvjiMb4AD29fhh3xQR3z_DrC_cMrTVL7ZhdR6IhWWEdbaBw61pmJWfJX3nlJ6qnYm0eEGF290YDw0L29Qu1D0Zo3ti9EtUV0eTqh8Y9w5-oUx2QwN2d9ZfvrbV8VI76Jac_wGy8vU0HDJC8kZsxCODUxL-v0-LWQnBluUpq-qsDVGV_FnsfWBY3t9eDW5Z4-YAmGWsK7U9CqUBkBPZgcWuym47_1VtxT74CJE_Bl65D2JD9IkLxfX80W9RBKrmEExeZfoxsqBGM592131t1to5g%3D%3D&tracking_referrer=www.washingtonpost.com

[crandles]

A higher ΔOHC will also affect the equilibrium climate sensitivity,
recently estimated at between +1.5 K and +4.5 K if CO2 is doubled1.
This estimated range reflects a decrease in the lower bound from 2 K to
1.5 K owing to downward revision of the aerosol cooling effect (in the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment
Report, as compared with the Fourth Assessment Report)1,24, but
relied on a low ΔOHC value (0.80 × 1022 J yr−1
 for 1993–2010).
An upward revision of the ocean heat gain by +0.5 × 1022 J yr−1 (to
1.30 × 1022 J yr−1  from 0.80 × 1022 J yr−1 ) would push up the lower
bound of the equilibrium climate sensitivity from 1.5 K back to 2.0 K
(stronger warming expected for given emissions), thereby reducing
maximum allowable cumulative CO2 emissions by 25% to stay within
the 2 °C global warming target (see Methods).

I wondered if this meant that it mainly affected the lower bound rather than all points on the pdf being pushed up.

James Annan is quick to respond:

I think they are just focusing on the lower bound as it provides a strong constraint on what we'd need to do to stay under 1.5 or 2C. Their revision will affect the upper bound too. Longer post coming!

and that longer post is at
https://bskiesresearch.wordpress.com/2018/11/01/that-new-ocean-heat-content-estimate/

[Pmt111500]

and this would be why Sea Ice decrease has surpassed the earlier projections. Can't say I'm surprised but it's nice to have this measured since some idiots on government-level go into extremes in their obtuseness denying crystal clear science.

[gerontocrat]

So what does this mean for the measurements by NOAA (which are used by vast numbers of scientists)? e.g. attached graphs

[crandles]

Paper is at
http://sci-hub.tw/10.1038/s41586-018-0651-8

For ocean heat content implications, Fig 1 seems the relevant graph:

[Rod]

So what does this mean for the measurements by NOAA (which are used by vast numbers of scientists)? e.g. attached graphs

The measurements are still the measurements and the data points are good.  The authors of the new paper simply argue that there are not enough data points to use them to generate graphs like the ones you have posted. 

They have developed a new methodology which they claim is more representative of the ocean conditions as a whole. 

The paper is very interesting.  But, the methodology is new and untested, and as time goes by other scientists will likely find fault with some of the assumptions they have made. 

The take home message is that the oceans are storing a lot of excess heat, and it is very likely more than the previous estimates.  This is one more very important study that shows we are running out of time to get carbon emissions under control. 

[Juan C. García]

A document to read:

IUCN: International Union for Conservation of Nature
Explaining Ocean Warming: Causes, scale, effects and consequences
Edited by D. Laffoley and J. M. Baxter
September 2016


https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/2016-046_0.pdf

[kassy]

Parts of the ocean are still cooling, study suggests

Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Most of the world's oceans are responding to global warming, but new research suggests there are still pockets of the deep ocean where ancient cooling processes continue to play out.

Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Harvard University determined the deep Pacific Ocean is still responding to the 16th century's Little Ice Age.

...

When researchers compared the datasets from the expeditions separated by more than a century, they found surface layers have warmed, as expected, but layers beginning roughly 1.2 miles beneath the surface have cooled.

"The close correspondence between the predictions and observed trends gave us confidence that this is a real phenomenon," said lead study author Jake Gebbie, a physical oceanographer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The new findings, detailed in the journal Science, suggest the ocean absorbed as much as 30 percent less heat than previously estimated.

https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2019/01/04/Parts-of-the-ocean-are-still-cooling-study-suggests/7631546621230/

These findings imply that variations in surface climate that predate the onset of modern warming still influence how much the climate is heating up today.  Previous estimates of how much heat the Earth had absorbed during the last century assumed an ocean that started out in equilibrium at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. But Gebbie and Huybers estimate that the deep Pacific cooling trend leads to a downward revision of heat absorbed over the 20th century by about 30 percent.

"Part of the heat needed to bring the ocean into equilibrium with an atmosphere having more greenhouse gases was apparently already present in the deep Pacific,” said Huybers.

https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2019/01/long-memory-of-pacific-ocean

[Juan C. García]

Thank you for the information, Kassy. 

I have suspicion on this study. I am not sure if it is related, but in the Hardvard link says: "This research was funded by the James E. and Barbara V. Moltz Fellowship and National Science Foundation grants OCE-1357121 and OCE-1558939". There is a James E. Moltz and Barbara Moltz living in Florida. James E. Moltz belongs to the Republican Party. Maybe I am not right making this relation, but at this time, I don't trust Republicans.

https://publicdatadigger.com/FL/vero-beach/46th-ave/123008998/James-Moltz

Edit:
Just suspicious on the conclusion: "Gebbie and Huybers estimate that the deep Pacific cooling trend leads to a downward revision of heat absorbed over the 20th century by about 30 percent." On the other hand, I hope they are right.

[vox_mundi]

Although I agree that grants should be inspected for strings attached, i can't automatically discount research based on where the dollars came from.

My bigger issue with this research is it's reliance on comparing modern digital data with known error ranges and min/max analog underwater thermometer readings from a century ago.

... Between 1872 and 1876, scientists lowered thermometers deep into the ocean from the three-masted wooden sailing ship HMS Challenger. In the 90s, scientists with the World Ocean Circulation Experiment collected ocean temperature data from across the globe.

"We screened this historical data for outliers and considered a variety of corrections associated with pressure effects on the thermometer and stretching of the hemp rope used for lowering thermometers," said Huybers.

Their conclusions suggest a degree of certainty that exceeds the significant figures in their datasets.

... The researchers used the data from both projects to build a computer model meant to mimic the circulation of water in the Pacific Ocean over the past century and a half.

The model showed that the Pacific Ocean cooled over the course of the 20th century at depths of 1.8 to 2.6 kilometers. The amount is still not precise, but the researchers suggest it is most likely between 0.02 and 0.08° C.   

How precise and accurate were Cook's thermometer reading? +/-0.5°C?  0.1°C? 
... 0.01°C? I kinda doubt it.

[mitch]

Roemmich et al (2012; Nature Climate Change 1 April) give the precision of challenger thermometers to 0.1 F (0.06 C).  The cooling is at the edge of the observations. However, it matches the model prediction of a long lag time for cooling in the Pacific.

[Wherestheice]

Yay back to BAU

[Wherestheice]

There is other research that seems to disagree

https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/disrupting-deep-ocean-warming-reaches-abyss
https://oceanbites.org/is-the-deep-ocean-warming-too/

I have a hard time buying the claim that the deep ocean is still warming

[Juan C. García]

Although I agree that grants should be inspected for strings attached, i can't automatically discount research based on where the dollars came from.
[/i]

I agree. It was the conclusion of the study what make me suspicious.

[oren]

I wouldn't be surprised if some part of the deep ocean was still responding to a surface signal from hundreds of years ago. I seem to recall that it takes 1500 years to cycle the meridional overturning circulation, though perhaps that only applies to the Atlantic.
However, if that is indeed the case, this should also be supported by Argo data. I am susprised at the reliance on problematic data when accurate data should be available for a number of years. This is admittedly far from my area of expertise (if such even exists), so - what am I missing here?

[Juan C. García]

On a second thought, I think that my comments were too fast and careless. So I want to excuse myself to put in doubt the intentions of the study of Gebbie and Huybers and the intentions of the James E. and Barbara V. Moltz Fellowship and National Science Foundation.

[kassy]

Some good points by Vox_Mundi and oren.

I have a hard time seeing how the 30% reduction in absorbed heat works.

We know that the mixing of waters takes place on long time scales so that there is deep water that is cooling could be. But 0.05 is a small number and 30% feels big but i guess it´s an artefact of ocean heat modelling?

Basically all that water is below the surface so it is not really involved in absorbing current or last century heat?

[mitch]

There seems to be confusion about what the Gebbie and Huybers paper said. First, Atlantic deep circulation takes a few hundred years to complete, and Pacific deep circulation takes more like a thousand years.  The Atlantic circulation is warming up because it is surface water derived, and average deep ocean temperature is going up. However, the Pacific abyss is still cooling off on average because of the lag time in deep Pacific circulation. This cooling reduces the net amount of heat stored below 2000 m.

Incidentally, fellowships are usually given to students/post docs from endowments set up at the university. The donors typically have no ability to decide who gets them.

[Tigertown]

You all might find a tidbit or two in this old thread: https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1612.0.html

[Juan C. García]

You all might find a tidbit or two in this old thread: https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1612.0.html

Thank you for this link, Tigertown.
Surely I looked for the subject in Science, but I didn't look for it in Consequences. Maybe Neven can put them together.
I like it more in Science. As we can see, there is debate of how much the Oceans have been warming.

[Juan C. García]

Another topic with the same subject. Only one post:

Critical global ocean monitoring program struggling to stay afloat without funding promises, warn scientists
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2016/feb/24/critical-global-ocean-monitoring-program-struggling-to-stay-afloat-without-funding-promises-warn-scientists

Ocean warming:
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,269.msg70610.html#new

[Juan C. García]

An another one…  . The same, just one post:

A Met Office report on Argo/OHC has just been published at:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/2016/argo-observing-the-oceans

Some edited highlights:

During the whole of the 20th century around 0.5 million shipboard observations were collected, in contrast the Argo array is delivering around 120,000 new profiles each year and by November 2012 Argo had collected its millionth profile. The increase in the number of ocean profiles measured over the last 15 years, due to Argo, is shown in Figure 3, which also shows the significant increase in the amount of available salinity data.

UK Met Office Report on Ocean Heat Content
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1473.0.html

[jai mitchell]

I wondered if this meant that it mainly affected the lower bound rather than all points on the pdf being pushed up.

James Annan is quick to respond:

I think they are just focusing on the lower bound as it provides a strong constraint on what we'd need to do to stay under 1.5 or 2C. Their revision will affect the upper bound too. Longer post coming!

and that longer post is at
https://bskiesresearch.wordpress.com/2018/11/01/that-new-ocean-heat-content-estimate/

The post shows that the higher bounds are also raised by this analysis, however it must be noted that this higher bound is not constrained by future modeled climate system responses (changes in albedo, cloud regimes, tropical forest desiccation, etc.)

The lower AND upper constraints of the PAST climate sensitivity that these studies show are all based entirely on the uncertainty of negative forcing (cooling) currently being produced by aerosols.  Higher the aerosol effect, the greater the sensitivity.

I have posted this before to show a recent paper's results

Faero = -0.9 W/m^2 (at least)

Source: Mauritsen/Pincus 2017 
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3357

[Juan C. García]

How fast are the oceans warming?
Lijing Cheng1, John Abraham2, Zeke Hausfather3, Kevin E. Trenberth4

Back to the 93%:

About 93% of the energy imbalance accumulates in the ocean as increased ocean heat content (OHC).

These recent observation-based OHC estimates show highly consistent changes since the late 1950s (see the figure). The warming is larger over the 1971–2010 period than reported in AR5. The OHC trend for the upper 2000 m in AR5 ranged from 0.20 to 0.32 W m⁻² during this period (4). The three more contemporary estimates that cover the same time period suggest a warming rate of 0.36 ± 0.05 (6), 0.37 ± 0.04 (10), and 0.39 ± 0.09 (2) W m⁻².

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6423/128

[charles_oil]

An easier read on the subject:

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/10/world/ocean-warming-faster/index.html

World's oceans absorbing 60% more heat than we thought, study says

The world's oceans are warming at an accelerated rate and are much warmer than scientists thought -- and things could get a lot worse if nothing is done to stop climate change, according to a new study.

The data, published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science, shows that the oceans have experienced consistent changes since the late 1950s and have gotten a lot warmer since the 1960s. The oceans are heating up much faster than scientists calculated in the UN assessment of climate change released in 2014. ..............

Paper referenced:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/363/6423/128.full.pdf

[Wherestheice]

The 60% number was updated and the update shows its about 40-50%, not 60%. Just wanted to point that out.

[kassy]

Record-breaking ocean temperatures point to trends of global warming
2018 continues record global ocean warming

An international team, released the 2018 ocean heat content observations in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences on January 16, 2019. The newly available observations show that the year 2018 is the hottest year ever recorded for the global ocean, as evident in its highest ocean heat content since 1950s in the upper 2000m.

Compared to the average value that was measured 1981 - 2010, the 2018 ocean heat anomaly is approximately 19.67 x 1022 Joules, a unit measure for heat. This heat increase in 2018 relative to 2017 is ~388 times more than the total electricity generation by China in 2017, and ~ 100 million times more than the Hiroshima bomb of heat. The years 2017, 2015, 2016 and 2014 came in just after 2018 in order of decreasing ocean heat content. The values are based on an ocean temperature analysis product conducted by the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) at Chinese Academy of Sciences.

and more on:
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-01/ioap-rbo011119.php

[Juan C. García]

Record-breaking ocean temperatures point to trends of global warming
2018 continues record global ocean warming
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-01/ioap-rbo011119.php

Thank you Kassy.

It is interesting that we still have the North Atlantic Cold Blob that is the result of oceans melting the Greenland ice sheets (green circle added).

[gerontocrat]

I had a look to see what NOAA had to say about ocean heat. Attached.

[Juan C. García]

Some studies that we already know, but a good article for the general public:

"Earth’s oceans are routinely breaking heat récords"

2018 was the hottest year ever recorded in the planet's oceans, and climate models have been accurately predicting their warming.

https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/02/earths-oceans-are-routinely-breaking-heat-records/

[gerontocrat]

Oceans getting warmer is one thing, but heatwaves multiplying is somewhat more scary

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/04/heatwaves-sweeping-oceans-like-wildfires-scientists-reveal

Heatwaves sweeping oceans ‘like wildfires’, scientists reveal
Extreme temperatures destroy kelp, seagrass and corals – with alarming impacts for humanity

The research found heatwaves are becoming more frequent, prolonged and severe, with the number of heatwave days tripling in the last couple of years studied. In the longer term, the number of heatwave days jumped by more than 50% in the 30 years to 2016, compared with the period of 1925 to 1954.

As heatwaves have increased, kelp forests, seagrass meadows and coral reefs have been lost. These foundation species are critical to life in the ocean. They provide shelter and food to many others, but have been hit on coasts from California to Australia to Spain.

“You have heatwave-induced wildfires that take out huge areas of forest, but this is happening underwater as well,” said Dan Smale at the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth, UK, who led the research published in Nature Climate Change. “You see the kelp and seagrasses dying in front of you. Within weeks or months they are just gone, along hundreds of kilometres of coastline.”

[dnem]

Does that figure imply that El Nino is becoming more frequent?

[gerontocrat]

Does that figure imply that El Nino is becoming more frequent?

Not necessarily, but the graph in the article implies that the effect of an El Nino is increasing.
Also, the graph implies that ocean heatwaves frequency gradually increasing in non El Nino years.

[gerontocrat]

And global ocean heat content updated...

https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/index.html

Note how much heat heading below 700 metres.
Also note how 0-100 metres getting a bit warm.

[vox_mundi]

Warming Accelerating in South Pacific Ocean Bottom Waters
https://phys.org/news/2019-03-deep-robots-south-pacific-ocean.html

New research analyzing data from deep-diving ocean robots and research cruises shows that the coldest, near-bottom South Pacific waters originating from Antarctica are warming three times faster than they were in the 1990s.

... The ship-based data show that deep ocean temperatures rose an average rate of 1-thousandth of a degree Celsius per year between the 1990s and the 2000s and that rate doubled to 2-thousandths of a degree per year between the 2000s and the 2010s. The Deep Argo floats reveal a tripling of the initial warming rate to 3-thousandths of a degree per year over the past four-plus years.

This warming rate of near-bottom temperatures is only a fraction of that of the surface ocean, but is striking for an area of the ocean long considered more stable.

Sarah G. Purkey et al. Unabated Bottom Water Warming and Freshening in the South Pacific Ocean, Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans (2019).

... Warming is consistently found across all sections and their occupations within each basin, demonstrating the abyssal warming is monotonic, basin‐wide, and multi‐decadal.

Gregory C. Johnson et al. Deep Argo quantifies bottom water warming rates in the Southwest Pacific Basin, Geophysical Research Letters (2019).

[kassy]

Analysis: Major update to ocean-heat record could shrink 1.5C carbon budget


The corrections introduced in HadSST4 bump up ocean temperatures by around 0.1C during the past few decades.

This is a substantial adjustment to the ocean temperature record, increasing the warming of the Earth’s oceans relative to the pre-industrial (1850-1900) period by around 13%. Because oceans make up two thirds of the Earth’s surface, this has a correspondingly large impact on global surface (oceans plus land) temperature records.

While the new HadSST4 dataset has yet to be incorporated into the overall HadCRUT surface temperature record, it is used by the Cowtan and Way temperature record. Cowtan and Way  uses the same data as HadCRUT, but provides better estimates of temperatures in regions, such as the Arctic, where data is more limited. This results in a higher estimate of historical warming than the HadCRUT4 dataset

...

This analysis by Carbon Brief suggests that changes in HadSST4 will likely reduce the 1.5C carbon budget by between 24% and 33%, depending on how the budget is calculated. This means that instead of having 9-13 years of current emissions before 1.5C is exceeded, the budget only has 6-10 years left.

The HadSST4 update may effectively remove three years of emissions at the current rate from the remaining carbon budget.

This is a bit of a simplification, however, as the actual SR15 carbon budgets were based on the average of four different datasets, two of which used HadSST3 and two of which used NOAA’s ERSSTv4.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-major-update-to-ocean-heat-record-could-shrink-1-5c-carbon-budget

[Sarat]

Can someone explain what is happening in this graph and how significant this is?

Why is the spike so huge?

Source: https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/

[DrTskoul]

Can someone explain what is happening in this graph and how significant this is?

Why is the spike so huge?

Source: https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/

Somebody messed up the graph??

[gerontocrat]

Can someone explain what is happening in this graph and how significant this is?

Why is the spike so huge?

Source: https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/

Somebody messed up the graph??

The data looks weird. Northern hemisphere increase totally out of wack?

 YEAR      WO    WOse      NH    NHse      SH    SHse
2005.125  10.818   1.869  14.000   1.736   8.586   1.962
2006.125  12.856   1.544  17.052   1.402   9.912   1.644
2007.125  13.150   1.488  16.183   1.392  11.022   1.555
2008.125  12.806   1.477  18.518   1.386   8.799   1.541
2009.125  12.912   1.408  14.474   1.452  11.816   1.377
2010.125  15.708   1.325  16.409   1.316  15.216   1.332
2011.125  12.496   1.468  12.440   1.499  12.534   1.446
2012.125  15.252   1.317  16.596   1.441  14.309   1.229
2013.125  16.324   1.201  19.803   1.246  13.882   1.169
2014.125  18.120   1.188  17.127   1.259  18.816   1.138
2015.125  19.310   1.149  17.774   1.131  20.387   1.161
2016.125  19.548   1.142  21.842   1.225  17.939   1.084
2017.125  19.976   1.072  25.355   1.125  16.202   1.034
2018.125  21.102   1.127  26.779   1.256  17.119   1.037
2019.125  32.068   1.204  50.564   1.368  19.090   1.090

[Sarat]

Somebody messed up the graph??

Zach Labe thinks it's a calculation/instrument error as well he replied to me on twitter

Edit: gerontcrat, thank you for raw numbers

It was also present on this graph:


Hope they get it fixed, though I'm not sure what kind of resources they have there in the current administration.

[Tom_Mazanec]

If you want to know what climate change will look like, you need to know what Earth's climate looked like in the past — what air temperatures were like, for example, and what ocean currents and sea levels were doing. You need to know what polar ice caps and glaciers were up to and, crucially, how hot the oceans were.
"Most of the Earth is water," explains Peter Huybers, a climate scientist at Harvard University. "If you want to understand what global temperatures have been doing, you better understand, in detail, the rates that different parts of the ocean are warming."
https://www.npr.org/2019/08/19/750778010/how-much-hotter-are-the-oceans-the-answer-begins-with-a-bucket

[kassy]

That is a nice story.
That data truncation (15.1 and 15.9 both equal 15) is awful but at least it is good to know!

The newly corrected data has far-reaching implications for climate science. Sea surface temperature is a big part of every major climate model, and for decades scientists have struggled to understand how the Pacific Ocean's relatively cool temperatures in the early 20th century fit into the overall trend of a warming planet.

...

Of course, if you zoom out, a warmer Pacific isn't particularly great news for humanity. "If you correct for the Japanese measurements, then basically you would warm up the global trend," says Chan. "That actually implies or suggests that maybe the human contribution is greater than what we used to think."

[TerryM]

"Most of the earth is water"
Strikes me as strange in a scientific lecture.


Most of the earth might be iron, or rock, or possibly even air? - but its not water.
Terry

[Hefaistos]

This is a really important research paper with enormous policy implications. Because of the increased heat already stored in the ocean, the maximum emissions that the world can produce while still avoiding a warming of two degrees Celsius would have to be reduced by 25 percent.

“I feel like this is a triumph of Earth-system science. That we could get confirmation from atmospheric gases of ocean heat content is extraordinary,” said Joellen Russell, a professor and oceanographer at the University of Arizona. “You’ve got the A team here on this paper.”

Open access at:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0651-8.epdf

That "really important paper" has later been - retracted!
Anyone knows why?

[paolo]

Hefaistos,

Retraction to: Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0651-8, published online 31 October 2018.:
" Shortly after publication, arising from comments from Nicholas Lewis, we realized that our reported uncertainties were underestimated owing to our treatment of certain systematic errors as random errors. In addition, we became aware of several smaller issues in our analysis of uncertainty. Although correcting these issues did not substantially change the central estimate of ocean warming, it led to a roughly fourfold increase in uncertainties, significantly weakening implications for an upward revision of ocean warming and climate sensitivity. Because of these weaker implications, the Nature editors asked for a Retraction, which we accept. Despite the revised uncertainties, our method remains valid and provides an estimate of ocean warming that is independent of the ocean data underpinning other approaches. The revised paper, with corrected uncertainties, will be submitted to another journal. The Retraction will contain a link to the new publication, if and when it is published."

Change history :
"12 February 2020
The revised paper, with corrected uncertainties, mentioned in the Retraction, has now been published: Resplandy, L. Quantification of ocean heat uptake from changes in atmospheric O2 and CO2 composition. Sci. Rep. 9, 20244 (2019)."

You can find the article in its new version with the following link

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-56490-z

[vox_mundi]

Arctic Ocean Moorings Shed Light On Winter Sea Ice Loss
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-arctic-ocean-winter-sea-ice.html

The eastern Arctic Ocean's winter ice grew less than half as much as normal during the past decade, due to the growing influence of heat from the ocean's interior, researchers have found.



The finding came from an international study led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Finnish Meteorological Institute. The study, published in the Journal of Climate, used data collected by ocean moorings in the Eurasian Basin of the Arctic Ocean from 2003-2018.

The moorings measured the heat released from the ocean interior to the upper ocean and sea ice during winter. In 2016-2018, the estimated heat flux was about 10 watts per square meter, which is enough to prevent 80-90 centimeters (almost 3 feet) of sea ice from forming each year. Previous heat flux measurements were about half of that much.

"In the past, when weighing the contribution of atmosphere and ocean to melting sea ice in the Eurasian Basin, the atmosphere led," said Igor Polyakov, an oceanographer at UAF's International Arctic Research Center and FMI. "Now for the first time, ocean leads. That's a big change."

Typically, across much of the Arctic a thick layer of cold fresher water, known as a halocline, isolates the heat associated with the intruding Atlantic water from the sea surface and from sea ice.

This new study shows that an abnormal influx of salty warm water from the Atlantic Ocean is weakening and thinning the halocline, allowing more mixing. According to the new study, warm water of Atlantic origin is now moving much closer to the surface.

"The normal position of the upper boundary of this water in this region was about 150 meters. Now this water is at 80 meters," explained Polyakov.



A natural winter process increases this mixing. As sea water freezes, the salt is expelled from ice into the water. This brine-enriched water is heavier and sinks. In the absence of a strong halocline, the cold salty water mixes much more efficiently with the shallower, warm Atlantic water. This heat is then transferred upward to the bottom of sea ice, limiting the amount of ice that can form during winter.

Polyakov and his team hypothesize that the ocean's ability to control winter ice growth creates feedback that speeds overall sea ice loss in the Arctic. In this feedback, both declining sea ice and the weakening halocline barrier cause the ocean's interior to release heat to the surface, resulting in further sea ice loss. The mechanism augments the well-known ice-albedo feedback—which occurs when the atmosphere melts sea ice, causing open water, which in turn absorbs more heat, melting more sea ice.

When these two feedback mechanisms combine, they accelerate sea ice decline. The ocean heat feedback limits sea ice growth in winter, while the ice-albedo feedback more easily melts the thinner ice in summer.

"As they start working together, the coupling between the atmosphere, ice and ocean becomes very strong, much stronger than it was before," said Polyakov. "Together they can maintain a very fast rate of ice melt in the Arctic."

Polyakov and Rippeth collaborated on a second, associated study showing how this new coupling between the ocean, ice and atmosphere is responsible for stronger currents in the eastern Arctic Ocean.

According to that research, between 2004-2018 the currents in the upper 164 feet of the ocean doubled in strength. Loss of sea ice, making surface waters more susceptible to the effects of wind, appears to be one of the factors contributing to the increase.

The stronger currents create more turbulence, which increases the amount of mixing, known as shear, that occurs between surface waters and the deeper ocean. As described earlier, ocean mixing contributes to a feedback mechanism that further accelerates sea ice decline.



Igor V. Polyakov et al, Weakening of Cold Halocline Layer Exposes Sea Ice to Oceanic Heat in the Eastern Arctic Ocean, Journal of Climate (2020)
https://journals.ametsoc.org/jcli/article/33/18/8107/353233/Weakening-of-Cold-Halocline-Layer-Exposes-Sea-Ice

Igor V. Polyakov et al. Intensification of Near‐Surface Currents and Shear in the Eastern Arctic Ocean, Geophysical Research Letters (2020).
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020GL089469

[Hefaistos]

Thanks Paolo.
I attach Nic Lewis critical review as a pdf. Pretty devastating!

"If you calculate the trend correctly, the warming rate is not worse than we thought – it’s very much in line with previous estimates"

"Their claims about the effect of faster ocean warming on estimates of climate sensitivity (and hence future global warming) and carbon budgets are just incorrect anyway, but that’s a moot point now we know that about their calculation error”

Here is a link to his site as well, as there are other critical reviews by him, also another one on ocean warming by Cheng et al from 2019.

<Link to his denier site removed. kassy>

[gerontocrat]

I attach Nic Lewis critical review as a pdf. Pretty devastating!

Following various strands from typing "Nic Lewis" into the search engine and you get connections (including collaborations in writing articles)... to

- Judith Curry,
- Ross McKitrick -  an Associate Professor in the Economics Department at the University of Guelph, Ontario, and is affiliated with various climate inaction groups.
- Marcel Crok, THE SUPER BAD GUY OF THE CLIMATE DEBATE by Anthony Watts / March 8, 2018, <snip, N.>
- March 2014 – Nic Lewis co authors a Global Warming Policy Foundation report that takes the most optimistic paper on predicted warming from doubling of CO2 [from pre industrial levels] and without feedback.

You can add American Enterprise Institute and and and and..

So what the hell are you doing bringing this guy as an authoritative source to this forum?

[KiwiGriff]

Agreed gerontocrat.
Nic Lewis is well known for hand waving away any research that finds global warming a risk.
Some suggested reading for those so inclined.
 https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2014/02/01/understanding-lewis-2013/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/02/marvel-et-al-2015-part-iii-response-to-nic-lewis/