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Merged Global Warming Discussion II: Heated Conversation

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The weather should be settling down here in the UK when this latest storm blows out. The Met Office assures us that next week's storms won't be as bad as this week's, which is something they haven't been able to say for months.

Just weather, of course. Extreme weather. Well, really extreme weather. The sort of thing we can expect to see more of. On the plus side, it's been very warm, which is just as well given the cost of energy these days.

Weather used to be what came on after the news, but increasingly it is the news. For what that's worth.
 
I have looked at various sources for this question, but I am uncertain of the answer. It appears that the energy contained in the oceans is about 103 times the energy contained in the atmosphere. Is that a good approximation?
 
CapelDodger said:
Just weather, of course. Extreme weather. Well, really extreme weather. The sort of thing we can expect to see more of.
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And if it's warm and calm in the winter, that is also global warming. It's the perfect theory of climate change, nothing can ever show it is wrong.
 
r-j said:
And if it's warm and calm in the winter, that is also global warming. It's the perfect theory of climate change, nothing can ever show it is wrong.
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As climate change has very little to do with individual seasonal episodes or short term trends, why would you consider such to be either supportive of, or refutation of, climate change? To do so, is mere ignorance of the terms and the science related to the terms. Your straw man argument is irrelevant to the discussion of Global Warming.
 
Perpetual Student said:
I have looked at various sources for this question, but I am uncertain of the answer. It appears that the energy contained in the oceans is about 103 times the energy contained in the atmosphere. Is that a good approximation?
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DO you have a quote for that? From looking at EPA site, I'm seeing that the ocean heat increases are equivalent to 80-90% of the energy absorbed from the Sun. (Levitus, S., J. Antonov, and T. Boyer. 2005. Warming of the world ocean, 1955–2003. Geophys. Res. Lett. 32:L02604)

(interesting quote) - "if all the heat stored in the world ocean since 1955 was
instantly transferred to the lowest 10 km ( 5 miles) of the atmosphere, this part of the atmosphere would warm by ~65°F."
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/DATA_ANALYSIS/heat_intro.html
probably holds details of the data you are looking for.
 
r-j said:
And if it's warm and calm in the winter, that is also global warming. It's the perfect theory of climate change, nothing can ever show it is wrong.
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No. Not at all. The climate system (including the oceans) losing energy would prove it wrong. That is not happening. this is one of the basic concepts of climate you need to understand.
 
r-j said:
And if it's warm and calm in the winter, that is also global warming.
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That's a very weird idea. Quite apart from the fact that it's never warm and calm in the UK winter; calm indicates high-pressure, relatively clear skies and cold conditions. For warmth we need winds from the Atlantic or the Bay of Biscay, such as we've been getting this year.

It's the perfect theory of climate change, nothing can ever show it is wrong.
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What's this "theory of climate change"? The theory that climate does change? That's very well established; ice ages were identified in the 19thCE. If you mean that global cooling wouldn't falsify the theory that an enhanced greenhouse effect will cause global warming then you're simply wrong. It would falsify it.

Your position, as I understand it, is that climate change cannot cause any harm, only weather can cause harm and weather isn't climate. That's an unassailable position if ever I saw one. Whatever happens, it's just a weather event. (You could add a little refinement to that by padding it with "which the models failed to predict", for extra comfort.)
 
Trakar said:
From looking at EPA site, I'm seeing that the ocean heat increases are equivalent to 80-90% of the energy absorbed from the Sun.
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Not really the same thing; the 80-90% refers, I think, to the energy imbalance. It's a tiny part of the heat in the oceans; it's all at least at 270K. That's a lot of heat.
 
a_unique_person said:
No. Not at all. The climate system (including the oceans) losing energy would prove it wrong. That is not happening. this is one of the basic concepts of climate you need to understand.
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Deniers will keep waiting for it to happen, and indeed expecting it. After all, there's no reason why unidentified natural causes for warming can't suddenly switch to cooling. It's in the nature of such things. :cool:
 
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Trakar said:
DO you have a quote for that? From looking at EPA site, I'm seeing that the ocean heat increases are equivalent to 80-90% of the energy absorbed from the Sun. (Levitus, S., J. Antonov, and T. Boyer. 2005. Warming of the world ocean, 1955–2003. Geophys. Res. Lett. 32:L02604)

(interesting quote) - "if all the heat stored in the world ocean since 1955 was
instantly transferred to the lowest 10 km ( 5 miles) of the atmosphere, this part of the atmosphere would warm by ~65°F."
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/DATA_ANALYSIS/heat_intro.html
probably holds details of the data you are looking for.
Click to expand...

According to this (I'm not sure of its reliability.), the total energy content of all the atmosphere and ocean mass is 5.6x1024 Joules/Kº while the total for the atmosphere is 5x1021 Joules/Kº. The ratio is about 1.12x103. I don't know if I'm interpreting this properly.
LINK
 
Not sure about the figures, just the details of the source would make me want to double check them! Remember that we are considering changes since pre-industrial periods, so it's the ratio of the energy increases that Trakar referred to, the oceans absorbing >90% of the excess energy from the enhanced greenhouse effect.

I also disagree with Pielke Senior's comment about the deep oceans not being included in the models. The major recent change in the ocean models is that the Argo data has significantly improved the observational data record.
 
The heat increment is, of course, what we're interested in, not the absolute amounts. Just as an extra metre of ocean depth concerns us much more than the average 4km that's already there.

Regarding models, I understand they've mostly used a continuous-flow model to represent heat transfer to the deep oceans, but the real process turns out to be much more sporadic. Some modellers are working on including this, naturally.
 
So much for Arctic Sea Ice recovery....it's melting in Feb!!!!!

SUN FEB 16, 2014 AT 12:48 PM PST
Extraordinary N Atlantic Storms Driving Gulf Stream Water into Arctic, Sea Ice Melting in February

Storm after storm has pounded England and western Europe, smashing the coastline with massive waves and flooding, making this the stormiest winter in the long English weather records which go back to 1766. But there's something happening in the ocean that's even more disturbing than the destruction to Europe. The extreme wind field across the Atlantic this winter is literally driving water that originated in the Gulf Stream into the Arctic Ocean causing sea ice extent on the Atlantic side of the Arctic ocean to decline in the middle of February. Water temperatures reported by NOAA are far above normal from the coast of north America, to the Labrador and Greenland seas, extending all the way into the Arctic ocean. The sea surface temperature anomaly maps are shocking. Water temperatures are more than 10°F above normal near Svalbard in the Arctic ocean. Likewise, Gulf Stream temperatures off of the east coast of North America are stunningly hot.

<snip lots of charts and stuff>

Last summer's sea ice recovery appears to have been short lived. Japan's accurate JAXA IJIS measurement shows the sea ice extent at an all time low for mid-February.
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/...Water-into-Arctic-Sea-Ice-Melting-in-February
 
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Perpetual Student said:
According to this (I'm not sure of its reliability.), the total energy content of all the atmosphere and ocean mass is 5.6x1024 Joules/Kº while the total for the atmosphere is 5x1021 Joules/Kº. The ratio is about 1.12x103. I don't know if I'm interpreting this properly.
LINK
Click to expand...

The average global ocean temperature is estimated to be 278º kelvin, and the average atmospheric temperature is estimated to be 287º kelvin, so the ratio of total atmospheric heat energy to oceanic heat energy seems to be:

(5.6x1024x278)/(5x1021x287) = 1.08x103, so it seems reasonable to say the oceans contain about 1,000 times more heat energy than the atmosphere. If my assumptions are incorrect or my logic flawed, I would appreciate any comments.
 
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CapelDodger said:
Not really the same thing; the 80-90% refers, I think, to the energy imbalance. It's a tiny part of the heat in the oceans; it's all at least at 270K. That's a lot of heat.
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Yes, retained heat energy over significant time. I presumed this was the question? or was it more simply a short-term "how much of a day's energy is absorbed by the ocean as opposed to how much was absorbed by the atmosphere?

Either way, as you note, quite a bit of heat.
 
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