New data shows vast ocean cooling

[kenl01]

A bit strange ! In the past, major ice ages usually have occurred with a rapid increase of ocean SST's and CO2 just prior to glaciation. However, if the oceans show little if any warming from now on, it should indicate less evaporation, thus less snow. It's also a bit odd that they mention 2005 because the oceans were pretty warm in 2005 as far as I remember. It's possible that, like other scientists are reporting, a little ice age is far more likely due to changes in solar activity and increasing OLR, (outgoing longwave radiation) resulting in global cooling after 2010 or so. A different scientist, Langscheidt, expects a repeat of the little ice age between 2020 and 2030. Not saying that it will happen, just a possibility. Then again it could mean nothing whatsoever.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/op ... 245606.php

17 Aug 06 - The world's oceans cooled suddenly between 2003 and 2005,
losing more than 20 percent of the “global-warming” heat they'd absorbed over the previous 50 years. That's a vast amount of heat, because the oceans hold 1,000 times as heat as the atmosphere. The researchers say the heat was likely vented into space, since it hasn't been found stored anywhere on Earth. The startling news of ocean cooling comes courtesy of the new ARGO ocean temperature floats being distributed worldwide.

John Lyman, of NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, says the
discovery of the sudden ocean coolings undercuts faith in global-warming forecasts because coolings randomly interrupt the trends laid out by the global circulation models.
Lyman says the sudden ocean coolings particularly complicate the problem of separating natural temperature changes from man-made impacts on the Earth's temperature. The impact of human-emitted CO2 has been assumed to accumulate in a straight-line trend over many decades. Meanwhile, since the 1980s, the Earth's ice cores, seabed sediments and cave stalagmites have revealed a moderate,
natural 1,500-year climate cycle linked to solar irradiance. Temperatures jump suddenly and erratically 1 to 2 degrees C above the mean at the latitude of Washington, D.C., and New York City for centuries at a time, and more than that at the Earth's poles.

[x-y-no]

*Sigh* ...

First of all, here's a link to the referenced research (PDF format).

The abstract states:

Abstract. We observe a net loss of 3.2 (± 1.1) ´ 1022 J of heat from the upper ocean
between 2003 and 2005. Using a broad array of in situ ocean measurements, we present
annual estimates of global upper-ocean heat content anomaly from 1993 through 2005.
Including the recent downturn, the average warming rate for the entire 13-year period is
0.33 ± 0.23 W/m2 (per unit area of the Earth’s surface). A new estimate of sampling
error in the heat content record suggests that both the recent and previous global cooling
events are significant and unlikely to be artifacts of inadequate ocean sampling.

Now, how about those "previous global cooling events? Well, reading on, it turns out ...

With over 1000 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere, the World Ocean is the
largest repository for changes in global heat content [Levitus et al., 2005]. Monitoring
ocean heat content is therefore fundamental to detecting and understanding changes in the
Earth’s heat balance. Past estimates of the global integral of ocean heat content anomaly
(OHCA) indicate an increase of 14.5 ´ 1022 J from 1955 to 1998 from the surface to 3000
m [Levitus et al., 2005] and 9.2 (± 1.3) ´ 1022 J from 1993 to 2003 in the upper (0 – 750
m) ocean [Willis et al. 2004]. These increases provide strong evidence of global
warming. Climate models exhibit similar rates of ocean warming, but only when forced
by anthropogenic influences [Gregory et al., 2004; Barnett et al., 2005; Church et al.,
2005; Hansen et al., 2005].

While there has been a general increase in the global integral of OHCA during the
last half century, there have also been substantial decadal fluctuations, including a short
period of rapid cooling (6 ´ 1022 J of heat lost in the 0–700 m layer) from 1980 to 1983
[Levitus et al., 2005].

So, there's been a general warming trend in OHCA since 1955, but we already knew of one event (1980 - 1983) nearly twice as large as the current one ( 6 x 10^22 joules vs 3.2 x 10^22 joules). Now why would this event, only half the size of the 80's event, indicate an impending ice age when that one did not?


Furthermore, Satellite altimetry indicates that over this time period there has been no change in the rate of increase of the sea level. So either this decline is missing some (presumably abyssal) heat sink, or there has been a precipitous increase in melt-water flow from land-bound ice to compensate for the decline in sea level which such a cooling would cause.

[kenl01]

Well that's only ONE report about recent ocean cooling - nothing else.
But the most important contribution from this finding is the fact that humans have nothing do to with ocean cooling or warming, or climate change.
Many others, like Jaworowski and Bill Carter from the James Cook University have also pointed out some cooling since 1979 at lower levels, Jaworowski at -.14C per decade from 1979 to 1998, then Carter reported a slight decrease from 1998 to 2005. Not that it's a big deal, although ocean cooling, if any, could help. This year even JB mentioned that 67 % of the oceans in the southern Hemisphere were cooler than average as of late July.

[x-y-no]

But the most important contribution from this finding is the fact that humans have nothing do to with ocean cooling or warming, or climate change.

I don't understand how you derive that conclusion from this research. It doesn't imply anything of the kind.