Satellite and Ocean Data Reveal Marked Increase in Earth's Heating Rate

Satellite and in situ observations (observed ocean energy uptake 0-2000m + published uptake of energy estimates by the deeper ocean, lithospher, cryospere, and atmosphere) show an approximate doubling of the Earth's energy imbalance from 2005 to 2019.

Anthropogenic forcing (inc.GHG's primarily), internal variability, and climate feedbacks) all contributed to the positive trend in EEI. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) contributed significantly to this doubling after shifting from a negative trend to a positive trend in 2014. This PDO shift is associated with El Nino conditions and is a factor for the super El Nino of 2015-2016. PDO's typically last 20-30 years.
I wanted to point out the contribution of natural factors to some of the headlines about the Earth's energy imbalance doubling from 2005 to 2019, which is a bit misleading.
However, the negative phase of the PDO would likely led to a lower rate of the global mean surface temperature in prior decades.

The paper discusses the positive feedback contributions of decreased cloud cover, decreased sea ice, and increase water vapor.

Conclusions (part of)
The excellent agreement between satellite and in situ trends in EEI obtained in this study
demonstrates the benefits of having independent satellite TOA radiation observations and ocean heat content measurements for tracking changes in EEI. That both produce nearly identical results provides confidence that the trend towards an increased EEI reported here is robust, since it is unlikely to be due to artifacts in both observing system

There are many graphs in the Geophysical Research Letters article below.

Satellite and Ocean Data Reveal Marked Increase in Earth's Heating Rate (wiley.com)

Earth is trapping ‘unprecedented’ amount of heat, Nasa says | Climate change | The Guardian


1. Introduction
Increasing well-mixed greenhouse gases (WMGG) have led to an imbalance between how
much solar radiant energy is absorbed by Earth and how much thermal infrared radiation is emitted to space. This net radiation imbalance, also referred to as Earth's energy imbalance (EEI), has led to increased global mean temperature, sea level rise, increased heating within the ocean, and melting of snow and sea ice (IPCC, 2013). In addition to anthropogenic radiative forcing by WMGG, EEI is influenced by aerosol emissions and land use change as well as by natural forcings associated with volcanic emissions and variations in solar irradiance. As the climate system responds to warming, changes in clouds, water vapor, surface albedo and temperature further alter EEI. These properties also respond to internal variations in the climate system occurring over a range of timescales, causing additional EEI variability

 

It's a complex set of processes.
The Cooling Side of Greenhouse Gases
2021 › 05 › 06 › the-cooling-side-of-greenhouse-gases
Without solar heating, earth’s surface cools by emitting more infrared heat ... solid earth that more quickly loses energy via atmospheric windows. This difference in cooling rates creates

 

An expert critique here:
New NASA Study: Earth has been trapping heat at an alarming new rate
June 19th, 2021
". . . First of all, the 0.5 to 1.0 W/m2 energy imbalance is much smaller than our knowledge of any of the natural energy flows in the climate system. It can be compared to the estimated natural energy flows of 235-245 W/m2 in and out of the climate system on an annual basis, approximately 1 part in 300.

Secondly, since we don’t have good global energy imbalance measurements before this period, there is no justification for the claim, “the magnitude of the increase is unprecedented.” To expect the natural energy flows in the climate system to stay stable to 1 part in 300 over thousands of years has no scientific basis, and is merely a statement of faith. We have no idea whether such changes have occurred in centuries past.

This is not to fault the CERES data. I think that NASA’s Bruce Wielicki and Norm Loeb have done a fantastic job with these satellite instruments and their detailed processing of those data.

What bothers me is the alarmist language attached to (1) such a tiny number, and (2) the likelihood that no one will bother to mention the authors attribute part of the change to a natural climate cycle, the PDO."

 

Roy Spencer is a climate scientist but he isn't one of the most trusted persons to rely on for a critique. It doesn't matter that the energy imbalance
estimates are about 1 part in 300 of the natural energy flows. What matters is the precision of the estimate and error bars are given in the report.
The satellite estimate of the energy imbalance has a high amount of error but the in situ estimate is quite accurate for this study. Both types of
measurements are independent of the other because the methodology is totally different.

The magnitude of the energy imbalance doubled from the beginning of the 2005-2019 period to the end of that period. It was 1.0 watts/square meter
at the end of that period and that is the highest energy imbalance ever measured. It should be common sense to any climate scientist that an energy
imbalance of 1.0 watts/square meter has not occurred in thousands of years, with the possible exception of a short-term imbalance caused by a very
large volcanic eruption. I am sure that most climate scientists would disagree with the statement that we have no idea of whether such changes have
occurred in centuries past.

An energy imbalance of 1.0 watts per square meter is not tiny and the media sources that I have read do attribute part of the change to a natural cycle.


2.2 In Situ Data

"The net heat uptake rate is estimated to be 0.77±0.06 W m from mid-2005 to mid-2019. This was calculated by determining the heat uptake
of the oceans from 0 to 2000m plus the energy heating the: atmosphere, land surface, the deeper ocean, and the energy melting ice."

It is the 5% to 95% confidence level of the above figure that matters, given as 0.06 Watts per square meter. Note how close the mean
values are for energy imbalance for these 2 different methods. The error bar on the CERES satellite energy imbalance is much higher than
the in situ value.

"A striking new result is that from the mid-2005 to mid-2019 estimates the trend of the energy flux for 0-2000 m ocean heat content anomaly (OHCA)
is 0.43±0.40 W /square meter per decade.
The trend for the net CERES TOA energy flux is 0.50±0.47 W/ square meter per decade over that same time period."

 

How come you didn't notice the media behind the article was lying big time over a weak paper?

 

The paper is useless when they overlook the resolution of the data:

Willis Eschenbauch,

The claims of accuracy, both in the paper and in some of the comments here, are overblown. Here’s the real data, from Loeb et al. 2018 (emphasis mine).

So there are two sources of error. First, random errors are the ± 2 W/m2 uncertainty from the calibration, plus the uncertainties from the radiance-to-flux conversion and time interpolation. In addition, we have the bias of the 4.3 W/m2 difference from the calculations based on the standard CERES data products.

This means that the uncertainty in the CERES EEI must be at least ~ 4 W/m2, not ~ half a W/m2 as the authors of the recent study most optimistically claim …

In addition, I’m most suspicious of their “in situ data”. They say:

However, their accuracy claims are … well … let me call them “unlikely”. For example, they claim that:

Seriously? They actually believe they can measure the 13-year change in heat uptake from a “warmer and moister atmosphere” to the nearest 0.009 W/m2? Or the corresponding change in land heat uptake to the nearest 0.004 W/m2?

Sorry, not buying that for one minute. We simply do not have adequate global data to measure heat uptake to that level of uncertainty.

Finally, consider this claim that over 14 years the heat uptake rate is

Now, 0.62 W/m2 is 19.5 megajoules per year, times 14 years is 274 MJ. 2000 cubic metres of seawater is 2047 tonnes. Specific heat of seawater is 3.85 MJ/tonne/°C. So the temperature rise from the heat uptake is 0.035° ± 0.002°C … again, I don’t think we’ve measured the temperature changes of the top 2000m of the ocean to the nearest 0.002°C.

TL;DR version?

No way we can measure the earth’s energy imbalance to that degree of uncertainty, either from satellites or from the ground.

Regards to all,

w.

LINK

 

I understand that quite clearly. I do not understand the alarmists view of things.

Is the sky really falling down?

 

The critique stands, your antipathy to Dr. Spencer notwithstanding.

 

Good satellite data and science but the flaw in this is the very short period used to justify it and the very minor increase used. The conclusion is flawed.

 

Another blog entry! How sweet! And you even posted one centered around a logical fallacy! Awwwww! It must hurt to only have such pathetic material to counter science with

 

Dismissed for lack of familiarity with the material.

 

Yet she can't address the "pathetic material" since that requires reading the article, and require critical thinking, that is too much for her to handle.

 

And here's an objection sent in to GRL.

Serious Error of Physics in Recent GRL paper Loeb et al on Earth’s ‘unprecedented heat retention’
Anthony Watts
Submitted to Geophysical Research Letters, 6/21/21. Published here at the request of the author. Howard C. Hayden1 1Prof. Emeritus of Physics, UConn, now in Pueblo West, Colorado (corkhayden@comcast.net) 1. Introduction…

"2.1 The Error in Physics

The serious scientific error of Loeb and colleagues is contained in this sentence, quoted verbatim:
“Climate is determined by how much of the sun’s energy the Earth absorbs and how much energy Earth sheds through emission of thermal infrared radiation.”
Climate is determined by the very large difference between surface radiation and planet radiation, and is most assuredly not determined by minor positive and negative imbalances between absorbed solar energy and radiated IR.

2.2 Unjustified Assertion

Mr Loeb is quoted in numerous news articles (Washington Post, CNN, and others) as saying, based on about 15 years of CERES data, that the minor disequilibria between incoming and outgoing heat fluxes is “unprecedented.” The same claim is made in the title of a GRL article by Mr. Loeb [2]. Perhaps he can provide us with data from the last 4.6 billion years of Earth’s history to back up that claim."

 

All that Sunsettommy and Jack Hays are doing is repeating the claims made at the "What's Up With That" site on this scientific paper.

Let's take Anthony Watts criticism first. The scientific error that he calls serious is irrelevant to any of the conclusions; it has to do
with a definition of climate and I think that Loeb was referring to perturbations to the climate. Anthony Watts is wrong about 0.50 to 1.0
watts/square meter as being a minor positive imbalance.

Anthony Watts statement about Mr. Loeb's "unjustified assertion" is a trivial one. Mr. Loeb's use of the word unprecedented was not likely
meant to refer to the entire 4.6 billion year history of the Earth. I don't know what was meant by unprecedented but he was probably referring
to more recent times like a few thousand years. Anyway, it is irrelevant to the findings of the report.


The article by Willis Eschenbach at WUWT, is not a peer reviewed paper published in a scientific journal and it wouldn't meet those standards.

The question about precision of measurements is a difficult one for me. Willis E. talks about the absolute accuracy measurements when that
isn't what is important. The change in a measurement over time is what is important - the anomaly from an average of measurements.
When that is done the errors in absolute readings are subtracted out. Willis Eschenbach would have you believe that climate scientists
performing these experiments are incompetent and he is smarter then them.

Improvements in measuring the Earth's energy imbalance are reported in the following paper. The improvement in precision from a 2005-2010
measurement of +0.58 +/- 0.38 watts/square meter to +0.71 +/- 0.10 watts/square meter from 2005 to 2015 is four-fold.

Improving estimates of Earth's energy imbalance | Nature Climate Change Johnson, Lyman, Loeb 2016

Earth is gaining energy owing to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and the large thermal inertia of the oceans1. This gain is difficult to measure directly because it is the small difference between two much larger components of Earth's energy budget — the amount of incoming solar radiation absorbed and the total thermal infrared radiation emitted to space. With over 90% of Earth's energy imbalance (EEI) being stored in the ocean, the most accurate way to determine it is to measure increases in ocean temperatures (along with increases in land temperatures, decreases in ice mass, and increases in atmospheric temperature and moisture)1. Although the observed net uptake of ocean heat energy is robust over decades, measurement biases and changes in sampling over time have made assessing year-to-year changes difficult2.

We previously estimated3 the EEI at 0.58 ± 0.38 W m−2 (expressed here in terms of average heat uptake applied over Earth's surface area with 5–95% confidence intervals). This in situ estimate was made from 2005 (the year the Argo array of profiling floats achieved sparse near-global coverage) to 2010 by combining observed ocean heat uptake over 0–1,800 m with published estimates of energy uptake by the deeper ocean, lithosphere, cryosphere, and atmosphere. It was used to anchor satellite-observed EEI from the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES), which, although stable over time, is not sufficiently accurate in absolute value to determine EEI at the required level. Year-to-year variations of 0–1,800 m ocean heat uptake and CERES EEI were correlated at 0.46. Here, we update our calculations (Fig. 1), and find a net heat uptake of 0.71 ± 0.10 W m−2 from 2005 to 2015 (with 0.61 ± 0.09 W m−2 taken up by the ocean from 0–1,800 m; 0.07 ± 0.04 W m−2 by the deeper ocean4; and 0.03 ± 0.01 W m−2 by melting ice, warming land, and an increasingly warmer and moister atmosphere1). In addition to a remarkable quartering of uncertainty, owing to improved sampling by the Argo array over time (Fig. 1), the correlation between year-to-year rates of 0–1,800 m ocean heat uptake5 and the latest release of CERES EEI is a much-improved 0.78. This striking agreement between two completely independent measures of EEI variability bolsters confidence in both of these complementary climate observation systems, and provides valuable insights into climate variability.

he in situ estimate (orange asterisks joined by an orange dashed line) is composed of first differences of annual 0–1,800 m ocean heat content anomalies estimated from Argo float profiles and other sources5, adding a constant heating rate of 0.1 m−2 based on the sum of the multi-decadal rates of deep (>2,000 m) ocean warming4, as well as land warming, ice melt, and atmospheric warming and moisture uptake1. In situ uncertainties (orange error bars) are shown at one standard error of the mean5. CERES data (blue circles joined by solid blue line) are adjusted to agree with the 2005 through 2015 in situ heat uptake rate of 0.71 ± 0.10 W m−2 (5–95% confidence intervals). CERES annual random errors (blue error bars) are shown at one standard deviation (0.1 W m−2). The percentage volume of the 0–1,800 m global ocean sampled for annual ocean heat uptake5 (yellow line) shows substantial improvement over time with implementation of Argo.


The in situ estimate (orange asterisks joined by an orange dashed line) is composed of first differences of annual 0–1,800 m ocean heat content anomalies estimated from Argo float profiles and other sources5, adding a constant heating rate of 0.1 m−2 based on the sum of the multi-decadal rates of deep (>2,000 m) ocean warming4, as well as land warming, ice melt, and atmospheric warming and moisture uptake1. In situ uncertainties (orange error bars) are shown at one standard error of the mean5. CERES data (blue circles joined by solid blue line) are adjusted to agree with the 2005 through 2015 in situ heat uptake rate of 0.71 ± 0.10 W m−2 (5–95% confidence intervals). CERES annual random errors (blue error bars) are shown at one standard deviation (0.1 W m−2). The percentage volume of the 0–1,800 m global ocean sampled for annual ocean heat uptake5 (yellow line) shows substantial improvement over time with implementation of Argo.

 

Bravo! Excellent critique

 

You continue to not comprehend the material. The critique was Submitted to Geophysical Research Letters, 6/21/21 by Howard C. Hayden, Prof. Emeritus of Physics, UConn, now in Pueblo West, Colorado (corkhayden@comcast.net). Published by WUWT at the request of the author.

 

It is clear he didn't read the article........

 

Often a peer reviewed article is taken as fact by the media yet very few of them ever stand the test of time. What is also a fact is that many of these articles are often taken down by not only scientists, but non-scientists that have expertise in other areas.

 

Nothing has increased except the hype.
No, NASA, Earth Has NOT Been Trapping Heat at an Alarming New Rate
ALARMIST MESSENGERS/CLAIMS JUNE 21, 2021
". . . Indeed, the small amount of energy change of 0.5 to 1.0 watts per square meter from 2005 to 2019 cited in this study is even lower than the average change of sunlight we receive during an 11 year solar cycle. . . . "

 

This article is very misleading. The typical peak-to-peak total solar irradiance variation that is absorbed by the earth is 0.2 watts/square meter.
The total solar irradiance varies by about 0.1 % or around 1.2 watts/square meter but that number has to be divided by 4 and multiplied by 0.7
to get the variation in total solar irradiance absorbed by the earth over 1 solar cycle.The authors of the article didn't include the solar irradance
variation because it has a very small negative trend over the time frame of 2005 to 2019.

Take a look at the solar irradiance variation below over this time frame. The total solar irradiance absorbed by the earth at the beginning of the
study, 2005, was 238.2 watts/square meter and the total solar irradiance absorbed the the earth at the end of the study was 2.38.1 watts per
square meter. This -0.1 watts/sq. meter over the 2005 to 2019 time frame
would account for a very slight amount of cooling and subtract from the
energy imbalance near the end of the study.
The linear trend of the CERES (satellite) derived energy imbalance was 0.42 +/- 0.48 watts/sq. meter at the middle of 2005 and 1.12 +/- 0.48
watts per square meter at the middle of 2019.

 

I checked out this physicist. He is a member of the Heartland Institute and has unscientific views on climate change. He promotes using all of Earth's
available energy sources; don't worry, be happy, nothing bad will happen. Now, where have I heard that before?

Howard Hayden - DeSmog

Stance on Climate Change
According to Hayden, “The previous predictions about the horrendous warming the people expected has not come to pass… . so it’s just pure garbage. There’s no reason to believe any of it.” [4]

The Energy Advocate, which Hayden edits, states: “Perhaps there is global warming, and perhaps there is a human influence, and perhaps that is bad. But we are not on the global-warming bandwagon… . There is no credible evidence that the temperature rise of the last century is anything out of the ordinary, and even less that a warmer earth would be less habitable than it is now. Nor will we attempt to scare readers with sea-rise, for it amounts to only the thickness of a nickel per year, as it has for millennia.” [5]

Hayden presented at the Heartland Institute’s live-stream rebuttal to the UN’s 68th Civil Society Sustainability Conference, which was being held in Salt Lake City, Utah. Heartland’s panel featured talks by James Taylor, Richard Keen, and Paul Dreissen, among others. [20]

According to the live-stream’s YouTube description, the event was organized to “show how the collectivist climate and sustainability programs promoted by the U.N. would cause more harm than good, especially for the world’s poorest and most disenfranchised people.” [20]

Hayden said during his presentation:

“Now, the good stuff. Get rid of these utopian delusions. There is so much coal available that nobody worries about running out for at least hundreds of years. Now, hundreds of years is a short time compared to that of civilization, but they don’t even look for coal because nobody even looks for it anymore. There’s enough natural gas in methane clathrates on the continental shelf to last for at least thousands of years. There’s enough uranium to last until the sun turns into a red giant and there’s even more thorium. There’s no shortage of energy and there never will be. What we lack is the will to use it and the freedom to use it.” [20]

 

The in situ estimates from this study were an update of a previous study by Johnson et al. 2016 That study calculated an energy imbalance from
the oceans 0-1800 meters deep, plus other heat sinking sources to arrive at an energy imbalance of 0.70 +/- 0.10 watts per square meter from
2005-2015. So, this study also had a very precise measurement for energy imbalance. Did someone at WUWT complain about that?

This study extended the time frame out to 2019 and the ocean depth to 2000 meters. The also modified the calculations to get a slightly
larger energy imbalance of 0.77 watts per square meter and a more precise energy imbalance with an amazing +/-0.06 watts/square meter
(5%-95% confidence level). The improved sampling by the Argo array accounts for much of the improvement in precision.

The in situ energy imbalance of 0.77 watts per square meter is in line with other studies and the measured energy imbalance has been trending higher
over time because the earlier studies did not include the deeper layers of the ocean and the ocean sampling coverage area has increased as well.

The linear trend lines shown for both the in situ (planetary heat uptake) and CERES satellite top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA) in Figure 1 are almost
on top of each other, with the CERES data having a slightly greater slope. The energy imbalance for in situ plot starts out in mid 2005 at 0.40 watts
per square meter and ends in mid-2019 at 1.1 watts per square meter. Much of this increase is due to natural variation (Pacific Decadal Oscillation-PDO).
The amount of the increase in energy imbalance due to the PDO is not quantified. So, I am not sure how significant this finding of a slightly
more than doubling of the energy imbalance is over such a small time frame. Nevertheless, an average energy imbalance of 0.77 watts per
square meter over 2005 to 2019 is a significant energy imbalance and in line with previous results. The fact that these in situ measurements
of energy imbalance are getting more precise, along with greater precision in satellite derived measurements, means that we have a better
understanding of our changing climate.

 

You still haven't learned that GISSTemp is a pile of garbage, hardly anyone use that outlier anymore.

You have been shown they change the temperature data regularly, you ignore it.

 

Solar irradiance is not an important measure for solar climate influence.

 

So what? Deal with the data or don't, but don't waste my time with personal attacks.