Study: Past Climate Change Was Caused by Ocean, Not Just the Atmosphere

Chipmunk100 writes Most of the concerns about climate change have focused on the amount of greenhouse gases that have been released into the atmosphere. Researchers have found that circulation of the ocean plays an equally important role in regulating the earth's climate. The study results were published the journal Science (abstract. "Our study suggests that changes in the storage of heat in the deep ocean could be as important to climate change as other hypotheses – tectonic activity or a drop in the carbon dioxide level – and likely led to one of the major climate transitions of the past 30 million years," said one of the authors."

Comments

"caused by Ocean"

[turkeydance]

no...please...not Billy Ocean

Re: "caused by Ocean"

[Coolhand2120]

I know you're kidding around, but make sure that you know the KKK was run as a militant arm of the Democrat party to run Republicans out of town.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...

Re: "caused by Ocean"

[Anonymous Coward]

More facts: in 1948 the Democratic Party started putting in civil rights into their platform giving birth to the Dixiecrats. By the time of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 the Dixiecrats were in open revolt and the Republicans swooped up the bigot vote with the Southern Strategy--which remains in place for the foreseeable future.

Re: "caused by Ocean"

[Attila Dimedici]

Ah yes, the famous Richard Nixon "Southern Strategy". You know, where he convinced all those racist southern Democrats to vote Republican by forcing desegregation on their schools after LBJ chose not to.

Re: "caused by Ocean"

[AK Marc]

The facts that the Republicans used to be the liberal party, and the Democratic Party, the conservative ones. But in the past 150 years or so, the parties swapped, they might as well have renamed themselves a few times in there. In the first 100 years of the USA, the parties changed names more often, but didn't after.

Doesn't help that the mainstream politicians are always left of the southern standard. David Duke was a "local" Democrat, but when going national, he changed parties to the one that's more conservative. A Southern Democrat is right of a northern Republican. So dividing on party lines for such things is useless.

Re: "caused by Ocean"

[Coolhand2120]

Right, so the party that ended slavery, desegregated schools and gave blacks the right to vote is the one all the racists went flocking to. Let's go back and look at how many Democrats voted for the civil rights act of 1964.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

Oh nos! A majority of Democrats voted against the act!! There goes your theory!

And then there's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... Robert Byrd. Served as a Democrat senator all the way up to 2010 and was a member of the KKK!. Oh yeah, and he filibustered the 1964 civil rights act! But that was pretty common for the Democrats, after all Al Gore's father http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.... filibustered the bill for 83 days! Quite an achievement for anyone. I'm sure Al Gore Jr. is proud of his pop for keepin' the blackies outa white schools.

So yeah, the whole "switcharoo" never happened. It's just a sad excuse used by "modern" Democrats to try and disavow what is now quite unpopular. But don't you worry, the Democrats are going to bring slavery back to the whole country in the form of massive unsustainable statism!

Listen to this guy. It really sounds like he's talking about socialism:

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatable things, called by the same name—liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatable names—liberty and tyranny.
-Abraham Lincoln

Nope. That's the first Republican president talking about slavery. And the tyrants he's talking about? Democrats.

But don't let facts get in the way of your frothing hatred of people you obviously don't understand.

Re: "caused by Ocean"

[gfxguy]

I call myself a classic liberal... it actually has meaning compared to the common nomenclature used in modern politics... neither of the two major parties has a lock on conservative or liberal thinking. In fact, they both would restrict your personal rights and freedoms, just different ones... neither party is particularly liberal, except with other people's money.

Re: "caused by Ocean"

[gfxguy]

Good post. Mod points expired the other day. Great Lincoln quote.

Re: "caused by Ocean"

[dywolf]

No.
And that fact you even try to go anywhere with that canard shows just how loose your concept of history is.
Saying they were all democrats is as relevent as saying they were all Christians, ie, not relevent. The KKK was oriented around fear/hatred of the outsider. IE, xenophobia, people who arent "us". And trying ot use it to paint the modern Demcoratic party based on your misreading of history is pathetic.

Read and be enlightened, 100 years of political history in 5 minutes:

Also happening around the turn of the century was the advancement of "Progressivism". It was becoming popular. It was largely in answer to Communism/Socialism. Like them it had its roots in opposition and pushback to the unfettered excesses of capitalism and the Gilded Age, but unlike them it did not seek to replace capitalism root and branch, but instead to simply curb and restrain its excesses. Both parties flirted with progressivism, running many candidiates who were unabashed Progressives who sought to curb the "fat cat bankers" and "bust the trusts" (that's how bad the Gilded Age was, that even the parties found common ground against them). One of the most famous progressives was Teddy Roosevelt.

Both parties had had candidates who wre "for the common man", and both parties also had folks who sidled up to business interests. Much like today. But the democratic party had a fundamental fracture within it. There were basically two wings within the Democratic party: the wing that was about "the common man" and became more and more liberal over time, and the wing that had more in common with the Tea Party. That wing was the Southern Democrats, or Dixiecrats, and they were very very conservative in ideaology.

As time went on within the Republican party progressivism died out, such that by the time of the New Deal, barely 20 years after Teddy Roosevelt, they were completely opposed to it, and mostly represented business interests.

But the Democratic party held onto progressivism. It became the defacto party of the common man, the little guy. That helped keep the fracture in the party from coming to a head because since Reconstruction the South was still reeling from economic hardship ("someone told us Wall Street fell, but we were so poor we couldn't tell"). The Solid South stayed democratic for a long time.

But the thing about Progressivism is it is a naturally supporter of Civil Rights. And that would start to prove to be too much for the Southern Democrats. And eventually it was this fracture that Nixon exploited in the Southern Strategy that basically split the democratic party in the south, and even nationwide. The segregationist minded democrats nationwide but particularly of the south, along with the dixiecrats (a seperate party by now), went Republican. And in the following years the few moderates and liberals remaining in the Republican party would be pushed out over the new few decades by the Religious Right and the Reagan Revolution.

So this whole "the Democrats created the KKK" thing is at best a misleading misdirection and revision of history, and at worst a myth.

More: http://quietmike.org/2013/12/0...

The issue here is the fact that the historic context is completely missed by conservatives, and often just plain embellished. Yes, in 1868 the Democrats were the racist party. However, what also must be known is that the Democrats were also the more conservative party at the time. The Republican Party, believe it or not, were the more liberal party. From the Civil War up until about 1948, the Southern Democrats were the most conservative wing of the Democratic Party.

[..]Yes, in historic perspective the Democrats were a more racist (conservative) party. However, I emphasize conservative. Liberals did not found the KKK, nor did they support segregation. By social standards, these were more conservative minded people at least in regards to race. These were not leftist

Re: "caused by Ocean"

[dywolf]

Um....Im guesing you cant read.
The split wasnt along party lines.
The split was geographic. Idiot.

A majority of BOTH parties voted FOR the Civil Rights Act of '64.

The vote totals from wiki, --that you linked-- :

Totals are in "Yea–Nay" format:

The original House version: 290–130 (69–31%).
Cloture in the Senate: 71–29 (71–29%).
The Senate version: 73–27 (73–27%).
The Senate version, as voted on by the House: 289–126 (70–30%).

By party:
The original House version:

Democratic Party: 152–96 (61–39%)
Republican Party: 138–34 (80–20%)

Cloture in the Senate:[21]
Democratic Party: 44–23 (66–34%)
Republican Party: 27–6 (82–18%)

The Senate version:[20]
Democratic Party: 46–21 (69–31%)
Republican Party: 27–6 (82–18%)

The Senate version, voted on by the House:[20]
Democratic Party: 153–91 (63–37%)
Republican Party: 136–35 (80–20%)

By party and region
Note: "Southern", as used in this section, refers to members of Congress from the eleven states that made up the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. "Northern" refers to members from the other 39 states, regardless of the geographic location of those states.

The original House version:
Southern Democrats: 7–87 (7–93%)
Southern Republicans: 0–10 (0–100%)
Northern Democrats: 145–9 (94–6%)
Northern Republicans: 138–24 (85–15%)

The Senate version:
Southern Democrats: 1–20 (5–95%) (only Ralph Yarborough of Texas voted in favor)
Southern Republicans: 0–1 (0–100%) (John Tower of Texas)
Northern Democrats: 45–1 (98–2%) (only Robert Byrd of West Virginia voted against)
Northern Republicans: 27–5 (84–16%)

As for lincoln, he wasnt speaking against socialism or liberalism. He couldnt be, because he and his party WERE THE LIBERALS OF THEIR DAY.
But again, the liberal/conservative split back then had more to do with geographical location than party lines. Northerners in general, of either party, were more liberal than those in the South.

The only ones trying to pull a switcharoo are peiople like you still trying to paint the dems as racists while ignoring the 150 years of history between then and now.
I direct you to the piece I just finished to explain it to another uneducated historical newbie like yourself: http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

really?

[darkain]

The year is 2014, and these "scientists" are just NOW realizing that the ocean plays a key role in global climate change? We learned about this in elementary school. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

Re:really?

[Trepidity]

It's been pretty well known that oceans play an important role in climate, yes. That is why, for example, Norway is habitable. But you might want to read the paper (or at least the abstract) to see what specifically it's claiming. They are not claiming to have discovered the idea of oceans being related to climate.

Also: El Niño is pretty irrelevant to a discussion of geological timescale phenomena.

Re:really?

[phantomfive]

"scientists" are just NOW realizing that the ocean plays a key role in global climate change?

No, they've known for a while.

We learned about this in elementary school. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

Ten to one odds that the article is something deeper than you realize.

Re:really?

[Eunuchswear]

Every time an idiot posts a "scientists are just NOW realizing that..." post we're seeing Dunning Kruger in action.

Re:really?

[TapeCutter]

The year is 2014, and these "scientists" are just NOW realizing that the ocean plays a key role in global climate change?

No, the slashdot summary paints a binary picture of air/water, to say that such a naive picture would find itself in one of the world's most respected scientific journals stretches credulity well past it's breaking point.

BTW: El-Nino is caused by oscillating prevailing winds pushing warm water east or west, it acts like a "see-saw" in a strong wind, however you're correct in that the imbalance does "pump" some deep water to the surface. I haven't RTFA but what they are more likely talking about here is the The Great Ocean Conveyor Belt and the effect on prehistoric climate when those currents abruptly changed for some geological reason (such as a gazzillion tons of ice falling off greenland, tectonic movements, etc).

Re:really?

[sg_oneill]

It just took them until 2014 to write it all down, eh?

Why would Science publish an article tell us what we already know?

No. The models have included oceans as a thermal body for heat storage for a very long time. The part they play however has been under active investigation and debate however.

Don't get fooled by clickbait headlines.

Re:really?

[dywolf]

It was a study about the past.

You know how you folks are always going on about "the climate has changed before, and nobody knows why" ??

Well....this is scientists figuring out that why.

It remains unfortunate that this issue is so...

[Karmashock]

... political. It would be nice to just talk about the science and mute all the political gamesmanship.

Re:It remains unfortunate that this issue is so...

[radarskiy]

The ocean is a liberal conspiracy!

Re:It remains unfortunate that this issue is so...

[crioca]

The politics is the only reason it gets discussed so much; if we were just talking about the science there wouldn't be all that much to talk about, because most of us lack the necessary knowledge to discuss the finer points of climate change modelling.

Re:It remains unfortunate that this issue is so...

[Truth_Quark]

For the same reason the Democrats are big on trying to do the same. It is a great way to funnel taxpayer dollars to their cronies.

So your claim is that all the world's climate researchers and in cahoots with all the worlds policy development people, to create a false sense of climate threat so that the tax money can be "funneled to coneys"?
Are all the world's university's in on this or is there a head of each climate science faculty that has been infiltrated by a crony scientist?
Are general science publishers like Science and Nature in on this, and are risking their circulation by publishing work they know to be dodgy?
Or are the climate scientists getting this stuff in under their reviewers and editor's noses?
How is this a "great way" for funnel taxpayers dollars? Doesn't it require paying off a whole lot of publishers, a whole lot of scientists, or seeding the high schools with your agents ten years earlier, and taking over the science of climate change with infiltration?
Wouldn't just giving your cronies a lucrative contract be a million times simpler?

Obvious to Engineers

[DanielRavenNest]

Any engineer who has studied thermodynamics knows that water has about four times the specific heat as air. The mass of the oceans is about 260 times that of the atmosphere. Combine these facts, and you find the oceans have about 1000 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere. Thus it should be obvious that in any scenario of temperature change, the oceans will play a big, if not dominant part.

In regards to Chipmunk100's summary, greenhouse gases affect the heat input to the planet. The oceans represent a vast amount of thermal storage capacity. One is the current rate of change, the other is the integrated total of the changes over a number of centuries. Different units with different dimensions. A change in greenhouse gases today will take a long time to show up as an overall change in ocean temperature.

Re:Obvious to Engineers

[chmod a x mojo]

Don't forget that this also has feedbacks. The global oceans hold ~60x atmospheric levels of CO2, and warm water will hold less dissolved gasses, leading to outgassing of CO2 and leading to more ocean warming. You will also get more water vapor ( another greenhouse gas ) in the atmosphere, but that will - eventually - be countered somewhat by the albedo effect of the large scale clouds that will form.

Re:Obvious to Engineers

[silentcoder]

>I've entertained your references there, and they don't provide a theory or an explanation of how Earth could have a runaway greenhouse effect such as that posited for Venus. They are of no value toward verification of your ideas.

I NEVER said the Earth COULD have such an effect on that scale, nor in fact that Tyson - though he certainly hinted at the possibility.
I said that Neil De Grasse Tyson says the proximity of Venus to the sun had little or no impact *there* - and I gave you proof that he said that.

>The Earth isn't wrapped in foil. It is exposed to the same radiation as Venus, but at a lower exposure.
Venus has no ozone layer for one - there's at least one layer of foil right there.

> That is why the Earth is cooler than Venus. I don't need a degree in Astrophysics to understand that.

But somebody who has a PHD in astrophysics claims that there were sufficient other factors that the proximity was not a factor (most likely - it was simply cancelled out by those factors). You're the one who, admittedly, is arguing about something you are not an expert on, with somebody who *is* an expert on it and has researched it extensively under extreme scientific scrutiny.
Therefore the burden of proof is on you to show that the data he cited was incorrectly measured, the theory explaining that data flawed or provide some other evidence that the theory is wrong.
He has already SATISFIED the burden of proof to support it, you can't shoot it down because of "common sense" you need EVIDENCE.

> have seen nothing from the global warming fanatics but fearmongering, and no real science
Then you haven't been paying attention to the scientists talking about it.

>Science requires verification against collected data, not against quotes from website summaries.
But I never claimed to BE a scientist, I merely told you what an expert scientist says about your claim (i.e. that it's false) it's HIS job to provide evidence for his claims and believe me if a scientist of his calibre says something that public without strong evidence his career would be *over*. The scientific community would completely ostracize him Andrew Wakefield style.
Forget what politicians like Al Gore says - I don't care what he says *either* - but I do pay attention when SCIENTISTS show me solid cause and effect and the effect.

And now I AM going to make some claims:
Since you like ultra-oversimplified metaphors so much and think they count as arguments - here's mine.
If you light a fire out of 100kg of wood and dump a bar of iron in it, the iron will not melt.
Yet for centuries we've been melting iron in wood-fired forges often with less wood than 100kg.

Why does the forge work and the open fire doesn't ? Because in the open fire most of the heat radiates away into the cooler air, while the forge is contained in material with low heat-transmission and so most of the energy remains within that confined space, and the same amount of heat causes a MUCH higher temperature.

As Tyson also said: "It's basic physics, energy cannot be destroyed or created. If the energy is arriving here, and not leaving at the same rate, then the earth must heat up".

That's how basic the physics is.

Nothing in climate science, nothing in chaos theory and sure as fuck nothing in political philosophy will change the laws of physics. If you add more than you take out, the total increases. It really is THAT simple.

Re:The sun is a FACTOR also.

[Truth_Quark]

Yes the ocean is a FACTOR. The Sun is a greater factor.

The ocean is a factor in the Norther Hemisphere Glaciation 2.7 million years ago. (As you can see from the abstract to the paper the articles is about). It is a factor because it transported heat from the northern hemisphere to the southern. Hence the title of the paper: "Antarctic role in Northern Hemisphere glaciation".

The sun has a different effect entirely, it changes the amount of energy incident on the whole globe/

CO2? not so much.

CO2 has been a significant forcing of global mean temperature throughout the past 420 million years. Particularly for the current warming, it is the largest single forcing.

Re:Just coming to that realization now?

[Truth_Quark]

No shit, idiots.

Perhaps you missed the actual focus of the paper. Changes in ocean currents that occurred 2.7 million years ago initiated the northern hemisphere glaciation, by enhanced inter-hemispheric heat and salt transport.

If you are just coming to that realization now, maybe we shouldn't be trusting you to 'fight climate change' with our hard earned tax dollars.

You seem to have a misunderstanding about what this is. It's is a scientific paper about a change to ocean circulation 2.7 million years ago. It doesn't affect your tax dollars. That is affected by your governments.

Re:In related news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The USA is less than 2% of the surface area of the planet. 2014 is on track to be the hottest year on record. Notice on the world map figure that there is a cold feature centered on the Great Lakes region. Another interesting item from the reference: 2010, 2005, 1998, 2013, and 2003, in that order are the warmest years on record.

Re:In Related News

[Anonymous Coward]

link
Meanwhile the number of record low temps outnumbers record high temps 2 to 1 in 2014. Thats right, more record highs means global warming, but more record lows is just temperature. 18 years of no warming is just temperature, but 6 months of warmer is climate.

No one believe your lies anymore, give up, you are the only delusional ones that belive yourselves.

Re:NASA disagrees

[Truth_Quark]

Those papers don't relate to the OP's paper, and they certainly don't disagree.

The paper in the OP is about a change in ocean circulation 2.7 million years ago. The NASA papers are looking at the current warming.

I note that if you read the abstract of the paper that you first link to, the findings are the net warming of the ocean implies an energy imbalance for the Earth of 0.64 ± 0.44 W/m2 from 2005 to 2013 which does not, as the press release implies, inconsistent with gobal warming, which is estimated to be about 0.9 W/m2.

And I note that your second paper, while there is a 150 year cycle, Greenland is also losing mass on top of that. Chart from this page.

I believe Mr. Hansen left shortly after this.

About nine months later.

Re:In Related News

[Truth_Quark]

Meanwhile the number of record low temps outnumbers record high temps 2 to 1 in 2014.

No, that's just the USA.

Thats right, more record highs means global warming, but more record lows is just temperature.

No, it's that record highs globally means global warming, record lows in the USA only means that 1.9% of the planet is cooler.
The reason that this is not inconsistent is that 1.9% of the planet doesn't have to have the same temperature trend as the global mean.

18 years of no warming is just temperature,

This 18 years?. Because that's warming.

but 6 months of warmer is climate.

Six months of warmest.

No one believe your lies anymore

This from the guy who tried to pass off the USA as the globe, the last 18 years of warming as not warming, and restated the latest 6 months that were the warmest ever recorded as 6 months warmer in the context of 18 years (falsely) not warmer.

Care to explain yourself on any of those points?

Re:NASA disagrees

[Truth_Quark]

This post is offtopic and wrong.

It discusses current heat content to try to refute that the ocean thermally connected the Antarctic with the Arctic 2.7 million years ago to start the current ice age.

It also casts the recent NASA paper that showed the increase in ocean heat content to be consistent with current estimates of radiative forcing as not finding the "missing heat". If the radiative forcings agree, there's no missing heat.

And raises the question "Why would a 150 year melt cycle be "right on time" in warming world?"
The answer is "Because the melt cycle is on top of a melting trend".

I can only assume that this got modded to +5 because there are too many climate change deniers on slashdot with mod points. I remember when the people posting and modding here had an interest in science.

WTF people? Science denial here? It's supposed to be "news for nerds" not "news for US tea-party morons from the trailer park" is here. Please go there an leave /. to people with something sensible to say.

Oh boy... here we go again

[silentcoder]

Scientists: "Our studies have increased our knowledge of the climate, which will help us to make our models even more accurate and refine our generic theories further giving even better immediacy to the results"

Deniers: "See, scientists still know nothing about the climate - they are constantly finding things that influence it which they didn't know about before so we should just ignore whatever they say about it forever"

Deniers with rabies: "See, humans can't possibly be influencing the climate because there are all these huge natural forces more powerful than us and there's no way humans could EVER change their environment and even though we always change it to suit ourselves surely none of our changes could ever have negative unintended consequences - only governments and LAWS have unintended consequences because guvmit is evil and this whole thing is just a giant hoax they made up because they hate my SUV"

Re:NASA disagrees

[Xyrus]

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014...

Of course NASA is used to doing this.

The ocean below 1.24 miles hasn't warmed. The ocean above that has, and it turns out it has warmed more than originally thought: Link.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
Doubled CO2 means under 2 degrees warming

"8th December 2010 13:24 GMT - A group of top NASA and NOAA scientists say that current climate models predicting global warming are far too gloomy, and have failed to properly account for an important cooling factor which will come into play as CO2 levels rise."

Yes, because a news site without links to the actual published research or subsequent scientific discussion is to be taken at face value. However, it didn't take much Googling to find that the so-called study being referenced in the link was authored by none other than Judith Curry, a well-known climate crank. Her work has been scientifically eviscerated many times over. In other words, she has no credibility.

The latest research, done by several different scientists at several different institutions over the past couple years seem to be averaging around 4C. The AR5 centered around 3C.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/ear...
""Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time," says Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data. "

Why would a 150 year melt cycle be "right on time" in warming world? Never mind somebody made the headline "Unprecedented melting of Greenland ice".

How can a cyclical even be unprecedented?

Again, you are mixing journalistic sensationalism with actual science. That being said, irregardless of the event, Greenland is experiencing rapid mass loss. There have been multiple papers on the subject.

I believe Mr. Hansen left shortly after this. I could be wrong but I think it was around that time.

This had nothing to do with why he left NASA. HE RETIRED. He mentioned his retirement several years before he actually left. He worked there for 46 years. Now he's following his passion as the director of the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions at Columbia University's Earth Institute.

Re:In Related News

[dywolf]

The only one lying is Watts and anyone who links to his blog of misinformation.

Re:In Related News

[Truth_Quark]

Wow. 0.1C of warming in 30 years.

Nope. Nearer 0.5C.

That's statistically indistinguishable from 0.

If it's not, then you have no basis for claiming there's a pause. A pause is when you can show that there has been at most 0 increase.
Perhaps you should test against the weaker criteria, that it is distinguishable from 0.16C. Then at least you could claim there's been a slowing.

Even the IPCC would admit that; that's why they're in a panic trying to explain "the pause."

Dude, the AR5 was last year. IPCC aren't doing WG1 publications now.

In terms of climate science, analysis of deeper ocean warming is now consistent with radiative forcing from other calculations. You're ten months behind the science.