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Thursday, July 25, 2013

WUWT argumentum ad ignorantiam or what a bunch of ignoramice

Sou | 4:30 AM Feel free to comment!

Anthony Watts and Bob Tisdale think that there is no movement of water in the world's oceans.  Anthony seems to think the ocean warms as if it is a single solid mass.  He thinks it warms from the top down gradually and no other way.  He cannot fathom that cold water might come up to the surface from the depths or that warm water might be drawn down to lower levels in the ocean. How do I deduce this?  Because Anthony asks:
How does that heat get to the deep ocean hidey hole, down to 2000 meters, without first warming the upper 700 meters in transit? That’s some neat trick.
I'd say he's built a strawman.  Here is a chart of ocean temperatures to different depths over time:

Data source: NODC/NOAA

So for starters, the oceans' top layer is warmer than deeper layers overall.  No surprises there.  Next thing to note is that the ocean is heating up at depth as well, right down to the two kilometres deep layer as has been discussed in recent published papers, like Nuccitelli et al (2012) and Balmaseda et al (2013)

Another funny thing, not so much for Anthony Watts, we know he knows nothing.  But Bob Tisdale keeps boasting about how he knows the ocean inside out and upside down.  Yet he writes this, and Anthony quotes him:
Can well-mixed human-created greenhouse gases pick and choose between the hemispheres, warming one but not the other? One might think that’s very unlikely.
Why is that unlikely?  What rule is there that says that all over the world has to warm at the same rate all at once?  Why wouldn't oceans in particular heat or cool at different rates at different times?  The land does, why not the oceans?

The weird thing is that it's only a few hours since Anthony posted an article about how the Indian Ocean didn't warm up as quickly as others until recently, most probably because of aerosols.  Makes you wonder if he ever reads anything he posts or if he just copies and pastes without reading the stuff.

Here is a chart showing the changes over time in the vertical mean temperature of the different oceans to 2000 metres:

Data source: NODC/NOAA

And here's a chart of the ocean temperature changes over time between the northern and southern hemispheres, again to 2000 metres:

Data source: NODC/NOAA

If you go to WUWT (no need really), you'll see that Anthony has focused on only the past few years, from around 2005 and is looking at changes in ocean heat content, not temperature.  So let's consider that, except we'll look at all the available data, not just the past few years.

Data source: NODC/NOAA

There is only data to depth for the last few years, but there is a lot more data for 0-700 metres.

How does the heat move around in the ocean?  I come across terms like meridonial overturning circulation - where meridonial denotes north-south and overturning denotes surface-depth.  Water in the ocean moves around all the time.  The ocean isn't all the same temperature.  Parts are warmer than others, which is obvious to all but people like Anthony Watts and Bob Tisdale apparently.  (Have they ever wondered how sea ice forms do you think?  Have they ever been swimming in the sea or a river or a lake and noticed how the temperature can change, even at depth?)

Finally, here is one more chart, from Nuccitelli et al (2012) showing where the heat is going:

Data Source: Nuccitelli et al (2012)


A sample from WUWT denialati comments


Eustace Cranch takes 27 words to ask:
July 24, 2013 at 8:17 am  Sorry for the scream, but: again and again, WHAT IS THE MECHANISM? What told the heat to hide? In 50 words or less of plain English, please.

David Becker, another fake skeptic, doesn't query what the deniers write but says:
July 24, 2013 at 8:34 am  Just out of curiosity, why did this process (energy going into the deep ocean) not occur from 1970 to 1996? Does it just occur when the solar radiance decreases (rhetorical question.) I too, wondered to many AWG supporters how the deep ocean might warm, but the surface not. This is more pathological science from very poor scientists who have a poor grasp of basic thermodynamics.
Mark isn't aware that ocean water moves up and down as well as forward and backward and says:
July 24, 2013 at 8:48 am About the only obvious mechanism for deep water to heat up is through vulcanism.

I know Jimbo doesn't keep up with the latest data and is a denier, but he's close when he says:
July 24, 2013 at 9:30 am  Bearing in mind hiding heat > thermal expansion shouldn’t we be seeing an acceleration in the rate of sea level rise?

We would see an acceleration if the oceans were heating faster (at an increasing rate, that is, accelerating) and/or ice sheets and glaciers were melting faster. Here's a chart of sea level - yep, it's rising faster:

Data Source: U Colorado


Chad Wozniak is the ultimate in denial, he says, every chance he gets:
July 24, 2013 at 9:58 am Actually, the overall cooling began in 1938 . . . it’s been going on, net, for 75+ years now . . .

This is for Chad:

Data Sources: NASA and UK Met Office Hadley Centre

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