Sentences with phrase «of ocean heat content change»

Given those assumptions, looking at the forcing over a long - enough multi-decadal period and seeing the temperature response gives an estimate of the transient climate response (TCR) and, additionally if an estimate of the ocean heat content change is incorporated (which is a measure of the unrealised radiative imbalance), the ECS can be estimated too.

Failure to include this aspect of ocean heat content changes the shape of the curve.

The advantage of the ocean heat content changes for detecting climate changes is that there is less noise than in the surface temperature record due to the weather that affects the atmospheric measurements, but that has much less impact below the ocean mixed layer.

This implies that the estimates of ocean heat content changes over the last 10 years are the most accurate that we have had to date and thus provide a good target to compare against the models.

Not exact matches

However, radiation changes at the top of the atmosphere from the 1980s to 1990s, possibly related in part to the El Niño - Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon, appear to be associated with reductions in tropical upper - level cloud cover, and are linked to changes in the energy budget at the surface and changes in observed ocean heat content.

The purple lines in the graph below show how the heat content of the whole ocean has changed over the past five decades.

We can estimate this independently using the changes in ocean heat content over the last decade or so (roughly equal to the current radiative imbalance) of ~ 0.7 W / m2, implying that this «unrealised» forcing will lead to another 0.7 × 0.75 ºC — i.e. 0.5 ºC.

For as much as atmospheric temperatures are rising, the amount of energy being absorbed by the planet is even more striking when one looks into the deep oceans and the change in the global heat content (Figure 4).

Figure 3 is the comparison of the upper level (top 700m) ocean heat content (OHC) changes in the models compared to the latest data from NODC and PMEL (Lyman et al (2010), doi).

In the Common Era before the 21st century, changes in ocean heat content and in mountain glaciers were likely the main drivers of global sea - level change.

However, lacking global observations of surface mass and ocean heat content capable of resolving year to year variations with sufficient accuracy, comprehensive diagnosis of the events early in the altimetry record (e.g. such as determining the relative roles of thermal expansion versus mass changes) has remained elusive.

It is widely believed that ocean circulation drives the phase changes of the AMO by controlling ocean heat content.

But when the first analyses of past ocean heat content changes appeared around the turn of the century they were rightly labelled «the smoking gun».

Linear trends (1955 — 2003) of change in ocean heat content per unit surface area (W m — 2) for the 0 to 700 m layer, based on the work of Levitus et al. (2005a).

Another figure worth updating is the comparison of the ocean heat content (OHC) changes in the models compared to the latest data from NODC.

We assess the heat content change from both of the long time series (0 to 700 m layer and the 1961 to 2003 period) to be 8.11 ± 0.74 × 1022 J, corresponding to an average warming of 0.1 °C or 0.14 ± 0.04 W m — 2, and conclude that the available heat content estimates from 1961 to 2003 show a significant increasing trend in ocean heat content.

From 1992 to 2003, the decadal ocean heat content changes (blue), along with the contributions from melting glaciers, ice sheets, and sea ice and small contributions from land and atmosphere warming, suggest a total warming (red) for the planet of 0.6 ± 0.2 W / m2 (95 % error bars).

Examination of the geographical distribution of the differences in 0 to 700 m heat content between the 1977 — 1981 and 1965 — 1969 pentads and the 1986 — 1990 and 1977 — 1981 pentads shows that the pattern of heat content change has spatial scales of entire ocean basins and is also found in similar analyses by Ishii et al. (2006).

You've got the radiative physics, the measurements of ocean temperature and land temperature, the changes in ocean heat content (Hint — upwards, whereas if if was just a matter of circulation moving heat around you might expect something more simple) and of course observed predictions such as stratospheric cooling which you don't get when warming occurs from oceanic circulation.

Nations of the world have launched a cooperative program to measure changing ocean heat content, distributing more than 3000 Argo floats around the world ocean, with each float repeatedly diving to a depth of 2 km and back [66].

The most promising approach is to measure the rate of changing heat content of the ocean, atmosphere, land, and ice [64].

Observed changes in ocean heat content have now been shown to be inconsistent with simulated natural climate variability, but consistent with a combination of natural and anthropogenic influences both on a global scale, and in individual ocean basins.

The key observation here is the increase in ocean heat content over the last half century (the figure below shows three estimates of the changes since 1955).

Numerous denier arguments involving slight fluctuations in the global distribution of warmer vs cooler sea surface areas as supposed explanations of climate change neglect all the energy that goes into ocean heat content, melting large ice deposits and so forth.

More than 95 % of the 5 yr running mean of the surface temperature change since 1850 can be replicated by an integration of the sunspot data (as a proxy for ocean heat content), departing from the average value over the period of the sunspot record (~ 40SSN), plus the superimposition of a ~ 60 yr sinusoid representing the observed oceanic oscillations.

I would of though ocean heat content / sea level would be a far more robust metric to gauge global change, particularly if modern values are stitched on the end.

It isn't an isolated conclusion from a single study, but comes from an assessment of the changing patterns of surface and tropospheric warming, stratospheric cooling, ocean heat content changes, land - ocean contrasts, etc. that collectively demonstrate that there are detectable changes occurring which we can attempt to attribute to one or more physical causes.

We find that the difference between the heat balance at the top of the atmosphere and upper - ocean heat content change is not statistically significant when accounting for observational uncertainties in ocean measurements3, given transitions in instrumentation and sampling.

A review of global ocean temperature observations: Implications for ocean heat content estimates and climate change

Better information about ocean heat content is also available to help there, but this is still a work in progress and is a great example of why it is harder to attribute changes over small time periods.

Changes in the heat content of the oceans.

The next figure is the comparison of the ocean heat content (OHC) changes in the models compared to the latest data from NODC.

That affects how quickly the land and ocean temperatures respond and make a different to the projection of the forcing onto the ocean, and hence the ocean heat content change.

This increased homogeneity, then, may alter the «how quickly the land and ocean temperatures respond and make a different to the projection of the forcing onto the ocean, and hence the ocean heat content change» and return the real world, combination - of - forcing, efficacy closer to that of CO2?

«Basically the interdecadal variability of ocean heat content observed previously (which has been the source of some debate and criticism) becomes smaller but the long - term trend does not change.

The key points of the paper are that: i) model simulations with 20th century forcings are able to match the surface air temperature record, ii) they also match the measured changes of ocean heat content over the last decade, iii) the implied planetary imbalance (the amount of excess energy the Earth is currently absorbing) which is roughly equal to the ocean heat uptake, is significant and growing, and iv) this implies both that there is significant heating «in the pipeline», and that there is an important lag in the climate's full response to changes in the forcing.

The connection between global warming and the changes in ocean heat content has long been a subject of discussion in climate science.

This idea was explored by Levitus et al (long term observations of ocean heat content) and Barnett et al (modelling of such changes) in a couple of Science papers a few years ago.

If you can't keep up with annual - decadal changes in the TOA radiative imbalance or ocean heat content (because of failure to correctly model changes in the atmosphere and ocean due to natural variability), then your climate model lacks fidelity to the real world system it is tasked to represent.

[Response: Theoretically you could have a change in ocean circulation that could cause a drop in global mean temperature even while the total heat content of the climate system increased.

While rereading the ocean heat content changes by Levitus 2005 at http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/PDF/PAPERS/grlheat05.pdf a remarkable sentence was noticed: «However, the large decrease in ocean heat content starting around 1980 suggests that internal variability of the Earth system significantly affects Earth's heat balance on decadal time - scales.»

If La Nina / El Nino can affect global air temperatures in a period of a few years, than other changes in ocean currents (driven by AGW) can affect global atmospheric heat content in a few years.

The chart shows that starting in the late 1940's, we have been able to measure the heat content of the top 2000 meters of ocean accurately enough so that annual changes in ocean heat content of less than 1e22 joules can be detected and tracked.

The RF time series are linked to the observations of ocean heat content and temperature change through an energy balance model and a stochastic model, using a Bayesian approach to estimate the ECS from the data.

The implication is that if climate change, driven by increasing greenhouse gases from human activity, increases the heat content of the ocean, storms passing over it will be able to draw ever more moisture that they can unload as rain.

No amount of change in Ocean Heat Content (OHC) by itself will have any effect on that.

Instead, they discuss new ways of playing around with the aerosol judge factor needed to explain why 20th - century warming is about half of the warming expected for increased in GHGs; and then expand their list of fudge factors to include smaller volcanos, stratospheric water vapor (published with no estimate of uncertainty for the predicted change in Ts), transfer of heat to the deeper ocean (where changes in heat content are hard to accurately measure), etc..

We have had lengthy heating phase caused by a spurt of insolation, now we have had a big El Nino, a subsequent shift to La Nina and the resulting warm currents moving up the the Western Pacific, causing warming polar oceans and changes in atmospheric water vapor content.

Researchers published findings in the 2010 International Journal of Geosciences, reporting that rates of change in ocean heat content are «preponderantly negative.»

we find that estimates of the recent (2003 — 2008) OHC [ocean heat content] rates of change are preponderantly negative.