NASA & NOAA - Rapid Rising Earth Energy Imbalance

[jai mitchell]

Scientists at NASA and NOAA compared data from two independent measurements. NASA's Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) suite of satellite sensors measure how much energy enters and leaves Earth's system. In addition, data from a global array of ocean floats, called Argo, enable an accurate estimate of the rate at which the world’s oceans are heating up. Since approximately 90 percent of the excess energy from an energy imbalance ends up in the ocean, the overall trends of incoming and outgoing radiation should broadly agree with changes in ocean heat content.




https://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/joint-nasa-noaa-study-finds-earths-energy-imbalance-has-doubled

Paper here:

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL093047

Satellite and Ocean Data Reveal Marked Increase in Earth's Heating Rate

Abstract
Earth's Energy Imbalance (EEI) is a relatively small (presently ∼0.3%) difference between global mean solar radiation absorbed and thermal infrared radiation emitted to space. EEI is set by natural and anthropogenic climate forcings and the climate system's response to those forcings. It is also influenced by internal variations within the climate system. Most of EEI warms the ocean; the remainder heats the land, melts ice, and warms the atmosphere. We show that independent satellite and in situ observations each yield statistically indistinguishable decadal increases in EEI from mid-2005 to mid-2019 of 0.50±0.47 W m-2 decade-1 (5%-95% confidence interval). This trend is primarily due to an increase in absorbed solar radiation associated with decreased reflection by clouds and sea-ice and a decrease in outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) due to increases in trace gases and water vapor. These changes combined exceed a positive trend in OLR due to increasing global mean temperatures.

In 2015 I was remarking how the previous negative PDO was very likely due to SE Asia aerosol emissions (which were being rapidly reduced at that time).

https://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2015/01/piomas-january-2015.html?cid=6a0133f03a1e37970b01bb07e0a090970d#comment-6a0133f03a1e37970b01bb07e0a090970d

In concert with that trying to push back against the concept that Sea Ice Loss was a function of natural veriability.

https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1920.msg109831.html#msg109831

And trying to plot recent analyses to see where we were going. Looks like I was about 4 years early on this one.

[jai mitchell]

It is interesting that this paper seems to also support Andrew Dessler's work on "pattern effect" for increased forcing on the planet as the earth warms due to changes in cloud patterns.

[jai mitchell]

It should be noted that the original meme of 400,000 Hiroshima bomb equivalent energy per day added to the Earth was based on the Hansen & Sato (2010) estimate of Earth's Energy Imbalance (EEI).  Their estimate was 0.6 Watts per meter squared of energy imbalance.

Hence, since we are now at 1.2 Watts per meter squared, the amount of additional heat added to the Earth each day is equivalent to 800,000 Hiroshima bombs.

[AbruptSLR]

Jia et al. (2021) indicates that previous consensus climate science's interpretation of satellite readings significantly underestimated how negative feedback is from aerosol-cloud interactions. 

Jia, H., Ma, X., Yu, F. et al. Significant underestimation of radiative forcing by aerosol–cloud interactions derived from satellite-based methods. Nat Commun 12, 3649 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23888-1

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-23888-1

Abstract: "Satellite-based estimates of radiative forcing by aerosol–cloud interactions (RFaci) are consistently smaller than those from global models, hampering accurate projections of future climate change. Here we show that the discrepancy can be substantially reduced by correcting sampling biases induced by inherent limitations of satellite measurements, which tend to artificially discard the clouds with high cloud fraction. Those missed clouds exert a stronger cooling effect, and are more sensitive to aerosol perturbations. By accounting for the sampling biases, the magnitude of RFaci (from −0.38 to −0.59 W m−2) increases by 55 % globally (133 % over land and 33 % over ocean). Notably, the RFaci further increases to −1.09 W m−2 when switching total aerosol optical depth (AOD) to fine-mode AOD that is a better proxy for CCN than AOD. In contrast to previous weak satellite-based RFaci, the improved one substantially increases (especially over land), resolving a major difference with models."

[Juan C. García]

For the non-technical reader:

Earth is now trapping an ‘unprecedented’ amount of heat, NASA says
New research shows that the amount of heat the planet traps has roughly doubled since 2005, contributing to more rapidly warming oceans, air and land
By Tik Root
June 16, 2021 at 3:00 p.m. CDT

The Earth takes in about 240 watts per square meter of energy from the sun. At the beginning of the study period, in 2005, it was radiating back out about 239.5 of those watts — creating a positive imbalance of about half a watt. By the end, in 2019, that gap had nearly doubled to about 1 full watt per square meter.

Oceans absorb most of that heat, about 90 percent. When researchers compared satellite data to temperature readings from a system of ocean sensors, they found a similar pattern. The agreement between the data sets surpassed expectations, Loeb said, calling it the “nail in the coffin” for the imbalance results.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/06/16/earth-heat-imbalance-warming/

[jai mitchell]

July Temperature Update: Faustian Payment Comes Due
13 August 2021
James Hansen and Makiko Sato

We should expect the global warming rate for the quarter of a century 2015-2040 to be about double the 0.18°C/decade rate during 1970-2015 (see Fig. 2), unless appropriate countermeasures are taken

http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/Emails/July2021.pdf

[gerontocrat]

July Temperature Update: Faustian Payment Comes Due
13 August 2021
James Hansen and Makiko Sato

We should expect the global warming rate for the quarter of a century 2015-2040 to be about double the 0.18°C/decade rate during 1970-2015 (see Fig. 2), unless appropriate countermeasures are taken

http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/Emails/July2021.pdf

If Hansen is right, +1.5 celsius AGW by 2030 a certainty (barring major miracles at COP26 and in the years after).

[kassy]

He probably is correct.

This will also mean that the coming decade will have larger heatwaves and even more spectacular downpours, bigger fires, more melting permafrost, more evaporation from fresh water bodies and soils everywhere. And we get to test the survival of our planets top cooler under these conditions... they won´t help.

[vox_mundi]

[FishOutofWater]

Gerontocrat, as you can see from Hansen's figures, the key to staying under 1.5C is to update the baseline. That's the maddening thing about climate normals in general use. They keep on revising the baseline so when you look at the figures in reports you have trouble comparing them.

Hansen is not immune to the problem of new normals. Look at his report. This is a very serious problem in communicating the urgency of climate change because to the average observer the climate is always moderately above normal no matter how hot it gets.

[NotaDenier]

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL094888

Oren/Kasey I felt this was a good spot to put this, if you feel different feel free to move.

The reflectance of the Earth is a fundamental climate parameter that we measured from Big Bear Solar Observatory between 1998 and 2017 by observing the earthshine using modern photometric techniques to precisely determine daily, monthly, seasonal, yearly and decadal changes in terrestrial albedo from earthshine. We find the inter-annual fluctuations in albedo to be global, while the large variations in albedo within individual nights and seasonal wanderings tend to average out over each year. We measure a gradual, but climatologically significant 0,5 W/M2 decline in the global albedo over the two decades of data. We found no correlation between the changes in the terrestrial albedo and measures of solar activity. The inter-annual pattern of earthshine fluctuations are in good agreement with those measured by CERES (data began in 2001) even though the satellite observations are sensitive to retroflected light while earthshine is sensitive to wide-angle reflectivity. The CERES decline is about twice that of earthshine.

Plain Language Summary
The net sunlight reaching the Earth's climate system depends on the solar irradiance and the Earth's reflectance (albedo). We have observed earthshine from Big Bear Solar Observatory to measure the terrestrial albedo. For earthshine we measure the sunlight reflected from Earth to the dark part of the lunar face and back to the nighttime observer, yielding an instantaneous large-scale reflectance of the Earth. In these relative measurements, we also observe the sunlit, bright part of the lunar face. We report here reflectance data (monthly, seasonal and annual) covering two decades, 1998–2017. The albedo shows a decline corresponding to a net climate forcing of about 0.5 W/M2. We find no correlation between measures of solar cycle variations and the albedo variations. The first precise satellite measures of terrestrial albedo came with CERES. CERES global albedo data (2001-) show a decrease in forcing that is about twice that of earthshine measurements. The evolutionary changes in albedo motivate continuing earthshine observations as a complement to absolute satellite measurements, especially since earthshine and CERES measurements are sensitive to distinctly different parts of the angular reflectivity. The recent drop in albedo is attributed to a warming of the eastern pacific, which is measured to reduce low-lying cloud cover and, thereby, the albedo.


The two-decade decrease in earthshine-derived albedo corresponds to an increase in radiative forcing of about 0.5 W/M2, which is climatologically significant (Miller et al., 2014). For comparison, total anthropogenic forcing increased by about 0.6 W/M2 over the same period. The CERES data show an even stronger trend of decreasing global albedo over the most recent years, which has been associated to changes in the PDO, SSTs and low cloud formation changes. It is unclear whether these changes arise from the climate's internal variability or are part of the feedback to external forcings.

[kassy]

I think it is fine since it is a recent and relevant find.
The abstract is surprisingly dry.

BTW: the W/M2 formatted as some weird text so i fixed it in the post above.

Related news article:
A new study published in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters publishes high-impact, short-format reports with immediate implications spanning all Earth and space sciences. For example, the Earth now reflects about half a watt less light per square meter than it did 20 years ago, with most of the drop occurring in the last three years of earthshine data.

This equates to a 0.5 percent reduction in the Earth's reflectance. As a result, the Earth reflects around 30% of the sunlight that falls on it.

"After 17 years of nearly flat albedo, the albedo drop was such a surprise to us when we analyzed the last three years of data," said Philip Goode, a researcher at New Jersey Institute of Technology and the lead author of the new study, referring to earthshine data collected by the Big Bear Solar Observatory in Southern California from 1998 to 2017.

However, when the most recent data was compared to prior years, the diminishing tendency became obvious.

Sun's Light and Earth's Reflectivity

The brightness of the Sun and the reflectivity of the globe impact the net sunlight reaching the Earth. The researchers discovered that variations in Earth's albedo did not correspond to periodic changes in the Sun's brightness, implying that changes in Earth's reflectiveness are produced by something on the planet.

According to satellite observations taken as part of NASA's Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) program, there has been a drop in brilliant, reflecting low-lying clouds over the eastern Pacific Ocean in recent years.

...

The Earth's dimming may also be seen in terms of how much more solar energy Earth's climate system is capturing. Because the extra sunlight is of the same size as the entire anthropogenic climate forcing over the previous two decades, it may contribute to global warming once it reaches Earth's atmosphere and oceans.

"It's pretty alarming," said Edward Schwieterman, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Riverside, who was not involved in the new research. Many scientists had anticipated for a long time that a warmer Earth would result in more clouds and higher albedo, which would help to temper warming and balance the climate system, he added. "But this shows the opposite is true."

https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/47670/20211002/is-climate-change-dimming-the-earth.htm

So cloud changes are the reason this happened. We have no idea how much further these changes can go (although paleorecords tell us that whole cloud types can disappear eventually). Or rather more problematic we do not know how much quicker things might get worse.

[jai mitchell]

The change in earthshine is a relative measurement that is not dependent on calibration for reasonable accuracy (or rather the calibration is standardized and in the lab, not in a satellite in space!).  This makes it very reliable over long periods of time.

The CERES data shows a very strong change in the shortwave (albedo) forcing during that period but the net value of change is shown below.  (graphic taken from the Loeb et. al paper linked in the first post for this thread)

It is my assertion that this change in albedo was subsequent to a shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) to positive in 2014 and was the result of air pollution mitigation in China.  We recently had a return to a negative PDO that was coincident to ramping up production post covid. 

While it seems clear that the additional forcing is based in the Eastern South Pacific and is causally linked to a shift to Positive PDO and it also appears very clear that the PDO cycle is not a natural variability but is rather aerosol driven. 

It has yet to be concluded that this change in ocean wind patterns-ocean surface temperature patterns driving large changes in earth albedo (positive forcing) can then be consisdered a third term in aerosol emissions.

If so, it could lend itself to a targeted global dimming activity, especially if this effect is regionally localized delivery.

[kassy]

Deep-Ocean Cooling May Have Offset Global Warming Until 1990

New machine learning techniques have estimated ocean temperatures below 2,000 meters, leading to a new model of warming trends.

Tracking ocean temperatures has long helped scientists measure Earth’s accelerating energy imbalance, but researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara have now applied new machine learning techniques to extrapolate deep-ocean temperatures (below 2,000 meters) with surprising results.

Whereas past research has shown gradual warming that has accelerated over time, new research from Aaron Bagnell, a doctoral student, and Tim DeVries, an associate professor, has suggested that cool deep-ocean temperatures offset surface warming until roughly 1990. After 1990, the authors posited, more rapid warming caused a spike in surface ocean temperatures that could not be offset by prior deep-ocean cooling.

Cooling associated with past events like the Little Ice Age (which covered roughly the 14th–19th centuries) had a lingering effect; DeVries said it takes roughly 1,000 years for surface ocean waters to circulate to the deep ocean, and vice versa, meaning that those cooler waters had an impact even centuries later. After 1990, the cumulative impact of surface-level warming was enough to cause whole-ocean temperatures to rise. The study was published in Nature Communications.

...
The result is a finding that not everyone agrees with. Greg Johnson, an oceanographer with NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, said the lack of data about deep-ocean temperatures prior to 1970 makes him skeptical about the potential accuracy of these findings. He also pointed to rising sea levels as evidence that global warming was proceeding steadily prior to 1990.

“The sea level has been going up fairly steadily.… From the 1990s to the 2000s and 2010s, it’s definitely accelerated considerably, but prior to that it was still rising globally, and that’s probably not all ice melt, which is what you’d have to conclude from this study,” he said, pointing to a global rise in sea surface temperatures over the study’s time frame.

Bagnell responded that data on sea level rise don’t necessarily contradict his findings: “Thermal expansion of the oceans due to warming accounts for roughly one third of the sea level rise observed today. The other two thirds is mainly due to the addition of freshwater from land sources like melting glaciers. Additionally, the historical record of tide gauges and satellites (for 1993 onwards) indicates that sea level rise has been accelerating from the 20th century into the 21st century, meaning sea levels likely weren’t rising as rapidly then as they are today. So the possibility that freshwater input accounted for a larger fraction of sea level rise during the 20th century isn’t out of the question.”

https://eos.org/articles/deep-ocean-cooling-may-have-offset-global-warming-until-1990

20th century cooling of the deep ocean contributed to delayed acceleration of Earth’s energy imbalance
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24472-3

[gerontocrat]

The Guardian article makes a big noise about ocean heat content (0-2000 metres) rising by 14 zettajoules in 2021. The recent 10 year average is about 11 zettajoules. NOAA has the highest annual gain @ +28 zettajoules (2017) and the lowest at -16 zettajoules (2016)
La Nina & El Nino are big influences.

Note:-A zettajoule is 10^21 joules (i.e. 10 with 21 zeroes after it)

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/11/oceans-hottest-temperatures-research-climate-crisis
Hottest ocean temperatures in history recorded last year

Ocean heating driven by human-caused climate crisis, scientists say, in sixth consecutive year record has been broken

Last year saw a heat record for the top 2,000 meters of all oceans around the world, despite an ongoing La Niña event, a periodic climatic feature that cools waters in the Pacific. The 2021 record tops a stretch of modern record-keeping that goes back to 1955. The second hottest year for oceans was 2020, while the third hottest was 2019.

As the world warms from the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and other activities, the oceans have taken the brunt of the extra heat. More than 90% of the heat generated over the past 50 years has been absorbed by the oceans, temporarily helping spare humanity, and other land-based species, from temperatures that would already be catastrophic.

The amount of heat soaked up by the oceans is enormous. Last year, the upper 2,000 meters of the ocean, where most of the warming occurs, absorbed 14 more zettajoules (a unit of electrical energy equal to one sextillion joules) than it did in 2020. This amount of extra energy is 145 times greater than the world’s entire electricity generation which, by comparison, is about half of a zettajoule.

Paper @ https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00376-022-1461-3.pdf

[kassy]

At some point that should translate into a lot of thermal expansion?

[The Walrus]

At some point that should translate into a lot of thermal expansion?

It has occurred already.

[Richard Rathbone]

Tamino has a blog on sea level rise by type of driver.
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2021/12/10/big-change-in-sea-level-rise/

Thermal expansion is the biggest contributor in the 21st century so far.

The big risks for acceleration of sea rise are Greenland and Antarctica, but at the moment thermal expansion is the biggest contributor.

Based on "The causes of sea-level rise since 1900"
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2591-3

[kassy]

The Conversation spoke with Trenberth, coauthor of a study published on Jan. 11, 2022, by 23 researchers at 14 institutes that tracked warming in the world’s oceans.

...

There is a lot more natural variability in surface air temperatures than in ocean temperatures because of El Niño/La Niña and weather events. That natural variability on top of a warming ocean creates hot spots, sometimes called “marine heat waves,” that vary from year to year. Those hot spots have profound influences on marine life, from tiny plankton to fish, marine mammals and birds. Other hot spots are responsible for more activity in the atmosphere, such as hurricanes.

...

We found that the top 500 meters of the ocean has clearly been warming since 1980; the 500-1,000 meter depths have been warming since about 1990; the 1,000-1,500 meter depths since 1998; and below 1,500 meters since about 2005.

https://theconversation.com/ocean-heat-is-at-record-levels-with-major-consequences-174760

That is some steady progress.

[jai mitchell]

James Hansen new piece on Earth Energy Imbalance, how the models mixed heat too rapidly and therefore underestimated the aerosol forcing and what the implications are with regard to future warming.

https://mailchi.mp/caa/earths-energy-imbalance-and-climate-response-time

Summary. Now let’s return to discussion of Fig. 1, Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI). In its own right, EEI is the single most important diagnostic quantity characterizing the status of climate change, the prospects for continued global warming, stabilization of global temperature, or cooling of the planet. EEI has large natural variability on time scales of a few years and even longer time scales, mainly because clouds are sensitive to fluctuations of weather patterns and ocean dynamics. Thus, we need more time to access the magnitude and significance of the increase of EEI over the past decade.

However, we can say with confidence that EEI increased in the past decade, an increase consistent with independent evidence that the growth rate of human-made climate forcing increased. Increased EEI is the basis for our projection that global warming will accelerate by as much as 50-100% in the few decades following 2010 (Fig. 4). The length of this period of accelerated warming will depend on the path humanity follows in its continuing changes of atmospheric composition.