Ocean Heating greater than previous estimates

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    Another study that suggests that the "missing" heat of climate change during the atmospheric temperature "pause" has been going into the oceans.

    So all it will take now is a good El Nino or two for that excess ocean heat to get pumped out and create new record atmospheric temps.

    As Trenberth put it, it's a travesty that before the Argo ocean heat measurement system was deployed (from 2001) our measurement systems were not accurate enough to give direct measurements of this ocean heat, where 90% of all climate change heating is going.  So we are only now being able to more conclusively demonstrate the expected heating has been there, and where it's been going.

    This study draws on the fact that climate models and ARGO have been aligned since we've had ARGO, and using that and correlating with satellite measured ocean surface level rise, due to ocean heating, a revised estimate of ocean heat change since around 1970 is possible.  That shows there has been much more heating than previous estimates have conservatively indicated.

    http://climatecrocks.com/2015/03/31/as-el-nino-emerges-ominous-findings-on-ocean-heat/

    http://www.nature.com/articles/ncli...udZ5vyYylysws1PvFFuDE7TrMWdqI5ALkWWveLtRRro0p

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    "Scientists have been measuring the heat in the warming upper layers since the 1970s, but these measurements have not been very accurate. The Southern Hemisphere’s oceans, especially, have been a dark spot.
    So to cross-check the heating of the oceans, Durack of LLNL and his colleagues took a roundabout route. They first verified that climate models are accurate using real-world satellite data of sea-level rise. Then they used the climate models to simulate by how much ocean heat content has risen since the 1970s.
    Their simulations did not agree with measurements of ocean heat made by scientists since the 1970s, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere. Prior to the Argo initiative, very few measurements were taken in the south, said John Abraham, a professor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., who was not involved in the study.
    “They find the warming of the ocean since 1970 is biased low,” he said, “which means there really was more warming than we’ve thought.”
    Since the advent of the Argo project, the measurements have improved and the ocean’s heat content has matched the predictions of climate models, Durack said.
    The Durack paper suggests that the upper oceans have been warming much more rapidly over the past 35 years than previously thought."
    Last edited by mjp2: 01/04/15
 
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