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Startling New Research Finds Large Buildup of Heat in the Oceans, Suggesting a Faster Rate of Global Warming [Update] (washingtonpost.com)
The world's oceans have been soaking up far more excess heat in recent decades than scientists realized, suggesting that Earth could be set to warm even faster than predicted in the years ahead, according to new research published Wednesday.
From a report: Over the past quarter-century, the Earth's oceans have retained 60 percent more heat each year than scientists previously had thought, said Laure Resplandy, a geoscientist at Princeton University who led the startling study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The difference represents an enormous amount of additional energy, originating from the sun and trapped by the Earth's atmosphere -- more than 8 times the world's energy consumption, year after year.
In the scientific realm, the new findings help to resolve long-running doubts about the rate of the warming of the oceans before 2007, when reliable measurements from devices called "Argo floats" were put to use worldwide. Before that, different types of temperature records -- and an overall lack of them -- contributed to murkiness about how quickly the oceans were heating up. The higher-than-expected amount of heat in the oceans means more heat is being retained within the Earth's climate system each year, rather than escaping into space. In essence, more heat in the oceans signals that global warming itself is more advanced than scientists thought.
"We thought that we got away with not a lot of warming in both the ocean and the atmosphere for the amount of CO2 that we emitted," said Resplandy, who published the work with experts from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and several other institutions in the U.S., China, France and Germany. "But we were wrong. The planet warmed more than we thought. It was hidden from us just because we didn't sample it right. But it was there. It was in the ocean already." Wednesday's study also could have important policy implications. If ocean temperatures are rising more rapidly than previously calculated, that could leave nations even less time to dramatically cut the world's emissions of carbon dioxide, in hopes of limiting global warming to the ambitious goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. Updated on November 14 at 14:40 GMT: Scientists Acknowledge Key Errors in Study of How Fast the Oceans Are Warming.
In the scientific realm, the new findings help to resolve long-running doubts about the rate of the warming of the oceans before 2007, when reliable measurements from devices called "Argo floats" were put to use worldwide. Before that, different types of temperature records -- and an overall lack of them -- contributed to murkiness about how quickly the oceans were heating up. The higher-than-expected amount of heat in the oceans means more heat is being retained within the Earth's climate system each year, rather than escaping into space. In essence, more heat in the oceans signals that global warming itself is more advanced than scientists thought.
"We thought that we got away with not a lot of warming in both the ocean and the atmosphere for the amount of CO2 that we emitted," said Resplandy, who published the work with experts from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and several other institutions in the U.S., China, France and Germany. "But we were wrong. The planet warmed more than we thought. It was hidden from us just because we didn't sample it right. But it was there. It was in the ocean already." Wednesday's study also could have important policy implications. If ocean temperatures are rising more rapidly than previously calculated, that could leave nations even less time to dramatically cut the world's emissions of carbon dioxide, in hopes of limiting global warming to the ambitious goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. Updated on November 14 at 14:40 GMT: Scientists Acknowledge Key Errors in Study of How Fast the Oceans Are Warming.
"It was hidden from us just because we didn't sample it right." This must have been the last remaining sampling error and from now on the science is settled.
I'm not sure what planet you're smoking on to believe that politicians are acting upon climate change, but those "old models" were far more optimistic for the future and politics didn't bat an eye. It's pretty reasonable to expect that we don't know shit about how all of these factors affect one another, and I'm not the least bit surprised that we are still grossly understating the consequences ahead. Good on you for not blaming Obama for this somehow.
Ad hominem in the first one already? No, that's not how it's played. First you have to make up some argument. Whether it's for or against climate change doesn't really matter, nobody's gonna read it anyway. Then you'll have someone react to it, then two or three more before someone derails it and goes of on a completely irrelevant tangent, and THEN you can come in with the ad hominems.
Stick to the script, please.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I used to care. A lot. Until I noticed that it doesn't matter whether I care. It really doesn't matter at all. It only made me waste my time trying to reason with people who don't want to be reasoned with because it would mean that they might be inconvenienced slightly if they wanted to leave their kids more than a wasteland.
And then I realized that hey, I do not have kids. I will not be cursed by my descendants for being a selfish asshole, lacking said descendants.
And that's when I decided I'd just sit back, relax and watch the show.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Your countdown was not needed since the people denying science were right there in the article.
They are claiming we should be worried despite admitting we had no idea the ocean could absorb heat a lot faster than we thought which seems like it helps mitigate the danger greatly, all models now being wrong in terms of some excess heat taken up by the oceans.
The story just does not add up, except to basically scream to us we should be worried. Why should we trust someone with such an obvious fear based agenda?
Fear is not Science, and your attempt to help spread it is anti-Science as well. Shame on you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm not taking a for or against stance but to quote the article "It was hidden from us just because we didn’t sample it right. But it was there. It was in the ocean already"... That gives me no confidence that they had any sort of valid historic numbers to compare against.
Yet another article on how doomed we all are. How about some solutions? Here's one we should embrace, nuclear power. If nuclear power isn't in a national energy policy, along with wind and hydro, then I believe the policy makers don't believe what they are shoveling or have an unrealistic belief on the threats nuclear power pose. Much like how people choose to drive instead of fly because they saw a news report on a plane crash.
I've heard this term before, "global lukewarming". Perhaps this is how I should describe myself, a "global lukewarmer". This is the idea that global warming is happening, it's man made, but it will be mild enough that we have plenty of time to resolve the problem. If I'm right then we need nuclear power. If I'm wrong then we need nuclear power right now. There is no long term energy policy that does not include nuclear power any more. Hoping and wishing for wind, water, and solar power to save us is not an energy policy. That's just waiting at the port for a ship that might not come.
Discovering deep ocean temperatures as evidence of faster than expected global warming is not news to me, I recall hearing this at least a decade ago. Making this discovery over and over again is either evidence of a short memory among the scientists or that they've been making bad predictions for the last 40 years or more. I'm guessing it's a bit of both.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Well let's take that bull by the horns. In 100 years we will push back from the oceans. Meanwhile technology will be unrecognizable and none of this will be any matter either way.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Now my counter argument. I happen to live in the Alps. They were always famous vacation resorts, and here, skiing and bobsleigh were invented. We have thus hundreds of printed pictures of well known regions like St. Moritz or Bad Ischgl dating back 250 years and photographs dating back 150 years and more, and we have the touristic and sport infrastructure built during the decades.
Thus we can tell from the pictures, from the buildings and the natural features like moraines, how far snow and ice have been in the 1700ies, the 1800ies, the 1900ies and today. And they all tell a consistent picture: Temperatures in the Alps have risen about 2.5 degrees Celsius since the 1700ies, and the end of the glaciers have retreated 750 height meters. Oetzi, the Similaun Man, an ice mummy more than 5000 years old, was only found recently, because the glacier on the Timmelsjoch, which covered the corpse, has tawed to a point where the mummy came back to the surface.
At least for the Alps, the climate development is definitely consistent with what the computer models tell us. Actually, it's more the reverse. The computer models are gauged with what we see in temperature sensitive regions like the mountaintops, where the extension of the glaciers is directly dependent on the recent average temperatures.
(And of course, daily temperature measurements started in the Early modern period, and thus, we have continuous climate protocols dating back until the first half of the 18th century. And of course, some of those early temperature stations were too close to buildings or inside towns, giving too high readouts for the local temperature. Later the stations were moved to more appropriate places, giving slightly lower readouts. And sometimes, the towns have grown around climate stations, making it necessary to move the stations.)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Literally everything you used to post that stupid, butthurt message involved the use of petroleum products.
If you don't want to be a hypocrite, you will need to go live in a cave. Just remember not to burn wood for heat...CO2 and all that ya know.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I suspect that if one were to audit the data and the process involved in coming to their conclusions, it would be found wanting at the very least.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
No one wants to give out a number.
There are model calculations for that. Go look them up if you're interested. Of course, it's not a very plausible scenario, so I can imagine that there's only limited interest in exploring it.
....there are model calculations for marching the secret climate police across the entire world to stop all carbon emissions?!?!?!
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
You mean like temperature measurements like at airports that have experienced large growth the past few decades? In high school, I helped maintain the weather station at my local airport. There was one runway, a tiny terminal, and no other buildings for over half a mile from the airport at that time. Now, there's three runways, two much larger terminals, and growth all around the airport on all sides. It's not shocking to see that there's been an almost half a degree rise in measured temperatures.
I wouldn't call it rejecting empirical data. It's more just cherry-picking data.
Look at how the left/dems are blocking nuke energy from replacing fossil fuels. We can do that rapidly, but the far left is stopping it.
The all powerful hippies are still crushing corporate America under their dirty Birkenstocks! Will hundred billion dollar energy companies never catch a break? Oh the humanity!
This is a fantasy that never dies, since it floats around without the least bit of evidence to support it (notice that Windbourne offers none).
The real truth is that nuclear power is in unattractive investment for capitalists, and without a lot of orders the industry has shriveled and become unreliable for those who do place orders. If you consult this handy industry webpage you will see that no fewer than eleven construction and operating licences for units have been approved since 2007, but of these seven have been withdrawn/cancelled, only two are still under constructions (the two Vogtle units) but which are way over budget (and in imminent danger of cancellation), and two more have yet to break ground. The DOE shares the costs of these license applications, and the U.S. government provides loan guarantees, as well as free insurance, yet no plants are being completed.
It isn't lawsuits, or protests, or public opinion, or "government regulations", bringing these projects down, it is hard-nose corporate bean counters pulling the plugs.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
I used to care. The older I got, the more I realized that people WILL believe what they want to believe. They won't be convinced. They will come up with amazing, overcomplicated stories for how their version of reality is actually reality. They will believe that zaniness without proof over a simpler explanation with proof. Because we will believe in the conclusions we want to be true and then work backwards to cherry pick evidence, discount any non-supporting evidence, and engage in personal attacks on anyone who argues differently. I got tired of it. It's too draining. Too few want to honestly exchange ideas. We just want to sit in our tribes.
The only thing known is that the ocean is acting to absorb a lot more heat than they thought before, so presumably it will for some time to come as well.
The models had indicated that there had to be some missing heat, and since it wasn't in the atmosphere it was suspected it was in the oceans. The issue was that without sufficient monitoring of the deep ocean (which is expensive) it couldn't be confirmed.
The concerns that scientists have are two fold, though. First, that a warmer ocean is a less good sink for CO2, so CO2 in the atmosphere may rise more quickly that anticipated, causing faster warming. The second is that it is not known what will happen if ocean currents change and there is an exchange of the heat back from the ocean. The historical record suggests this does indeed happen (MWP being one such possible period, although the MWP was cooler than today), and palentological also. ENSO is also a potential method of temperature exchange.
So the answer above is, if ALL emissions are ceased, the climate impacts will cease
No. "approximately cancelling" is referring to warming in the pipeline.
Quote: "The real truth is that nuclear power is in unattractive investment..."
Humans have shown that they cannot manage nuclear power in a safe manner. One example: Seven years on, radioactive water at Fukushima plant still flowing into ocean, study finds (March 29, 2018)
We've known the radiation absorption properties of CO2 since the 19th century, and we have in fact known since then that increasing CO2 PPM in the atmosphere inevitably leads to more solar radiation being captured. It's thermodynamics. You can't escape, the universe well and truly doesn't give a flying fuck about how you're going to be inconvenienced. Get over it. Thermodynamics is an immutable property of the univers.e
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If the science is settled, I guess it's time to stop all funding into it, right?
Strange how the most prominent areas of warming in the recent instrumental record are in the Arctic and Siberia.
If someone falls of a roof that is not called a solar death.
I think confirmed deaths from Fukushimas is about 1. Plus maybe a dozen more statistical deaths. The tsunami killed thousands.
And that is the point. Nobody talks about the tsunami. The reactor is considered to have been far more dangerous than the ocean, even though the facts are quite different.
This makes nuclear untenable. Safety issues are over blown. Nobody is going to shut down the solar industry because someone falls off a roof. But think about what happens to nuclear investment if even one person dies.
Likewise the nuclear waste. It is a major issue precisely because it contains those two words, "nuclear" and "waste". Perceptions are reality.
So let's hope the price of solar falls before the globe cooks.
Yup, that's how it's done. Pointless argument, ridiculous counter argument, derailing, ad hominem... classic progress maintained.
I'm proud of you, guys.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.