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Mystery Of The Missing Heat: Upper Ocean Has Cooled Slightly In Recent Years . . .
Science News ^ | 9-30-2006 | Sid Perkins

Posted on 09/29/2006 3:19:10 PM PDT by blam

Mystery of the Missing Heat: Upper ocean has cooled slightly in recent years, despite warming climate

Sid Perkins

Between 2003 and 2005, the top layers of the world's oceans cooled slightly, but scientists aren't sure where the heat went.

According to climate data gathered worldwide, 2003, 2004, and 2005 are three of the five warmest years since reliable record keeping of global air temperatures began more than a century ago. However, oceanographic surveys suggest that on average, the upper 750 meters of the world's ice-free oceans cooled about 0.03°C during that 3-year period.

This cooling reverses an oceanic-warming trend observed since the 1950s, oceanographer John M. Lyman and his colleagues report in the Sept. 28 Geophysical Research Letters. Between 1993 and 2003, the average temperature of the upper layers of the icefree ocean rose about 0.09°C, they note.

The newly documented cooling occurred throughout the top 750 m of ocean and seems to have extended to deeper waters as well, says study coauthor Josh K. Willis, an oceanographer now at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Data used in the new analysis were gathered by buoys tethered in deep water, instruments towed by or dropped from ships, and an armada of robotic probes, says Lyman, who's at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) laboratory in Seattle.

While the top layers of the ocean have cooled slightly overall, some limited areas have warmed, says coauthor Gregory C. Johnson, also of NOAA in Seattle. The cooling trend, as well as its patchiness, probably results from variations in climate cycles such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, he notes.

"Even within a long-term warming trend, you can have short-term drops in [ocean] temperature due to year-to-year variability," says Lyman.

Scientists are working to identify where the heat went. One possibility: It may have moved to the deepest layers of the ocean. The cooling of surface waters would cause them to contract, triggering a small drop in sea level, says Willis. But satellite data suggest that sea level is still rising. So, the missing heat may have gone deep, causing waters there to expand and prevent a decline in sea level. However, "it's hard to envision a way to put that much heat down deep so quickly," says Willis.

In another scenario under consideration, the missing heat may have radiated into space. However, satellite observations don't support that notion, says Bruce A. Wielicki, a physicist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. Yet another possibility is that the heat warmed some of the waters in polar regions and promoted melting of the ice cover there, he notes.

"We have a few more pieces to unravel" about where the heat has gone, comments Sarah T. Gille, an oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. "It's a real conundrum."

If you have a comment on this article that you would like considered for publication in Science News, send it to editors@sciencenews.org. Please include your name and location.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: climate; climatechange; cooled; despite; globalcooling; globalwarming; heat; heatrises; missing; mystery; ocean; recent; slightly; upper; warming; years
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To: blam
"scientists aren't sure where the heat went"

What's that movie with Ben Stiller where the running gag is "where does the poo go?" His character's friend has invented "VA-POO-RIZE" -- a spray that makes dog poo disappear, it would seem, until they find out what's really happening to it....

Seems like some good cartoons could be made showing the Algore-bots saying "where did the heat go, where did the heat go"
21 posted on 09/29/2006 3:47:42 PM PDT by Enchante (There are 3 kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Drive-By Media)
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To: blam
Between 2003 and 2005, the top layers of the world's oceans cooled slightly, but scientists aren't sure where the heat went.

It went into air where it's melting the glaciers which are cooling the waters......

22 posted on 09/29/2006 3:48:53 PM PDT by raybbr (You think it's bad now - wait till the anchor babies start to vote.)
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To: Paloma_55

It's clear that there is a correlation between CO2 and global temperature, but temperature seems to be more of a leading indicator of a rise in CO2, rather than the other way around.


23 posted on 09/29/2006 3:48:55 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: blam
"Between 2003 and 2005, the top layers of the world's oceans cooled slightly, but scientists aren't sure where the heat went.

According to climate data gathered worldwide, 2003, 2004, and 2005 are three of the five warmest years since reliable record keeping of global air temperatures

Uh....maybe into the air.....?

24 posted on 09/29/2006 3:50:00 PM PDT by cookcounty (Army vet, Army dad)
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To: blam

Must be all the welded hull aluminum ships floating around... aluminum makes a good heatsink...


25 posted on 09/29/2006 3:50:55 PM PDT by MD_Willington_1976
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To: blam

I find it hard to believe that the statistical models are accurate enough to pin down a 3/100 degree change... but who knows, 15 years ago I wouldn't have believed in GPS accuracy.


26 posted on 09/29/2006 3:52:50 PM PDT by djf (Its time for all patriotic Americans to get a new pet --- a pet PIG!!)
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To: blam

We're hot,we're cold then we're hot again than cold.......it isn't global warming we all have menopause!!!


27 posted on 09/29/2006 3:56:42 PM PDT by Kimmers
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To: GOP_1900AD

I take this chart to any political activity I go to because it shows that we are in the warmest possible period of a cycle that is likely to get much colder.

People are complaining of warming, but what do we do when the globe is 8 degrees C colder?? I live in Northern California where the glaciers will be pushing down into the lower elevations.

Mexico will be a nice place to live in about 1000 years and Canada will be completely covered in ice.


28 posted on 09/29/2006 3:57:45 PM PDT by Paloma_55 (I may be a hateful bigot, but I still love you)
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To: Kimmers

Gaial Menopause, instead of global warming?


29 posted on 09/29/2006 3:58:53 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: blam

bttt


30 posted on 09/29/2006 4:00:37 PM PDT by shield (A wise man's heart is at his RIGHT hand; but a fool's heart at his LEFT. Ecc 10:2)
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To: blam

I think they have the question wrong;

It's not where did the heat go ?

It should be where WAS the cold ?

I think if there have been fewer undersea volcanos, it would answer their question.


31 posted on 09/29/2006 4:18:25 PM PDT by be4everfree
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To: Paloma_55

It is raining today and the temperature is 39 and holding steady all day. This should turn to snow by midnight. Posibly the roads will all be black ice by morning.


32 posted on 09/29/2006 4:23:05 PM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the law of the excluded middle)
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To: OK
We continue to be DOOMED!

'rats can fix this, just ask them.

33 posted on 09/29/2006 4:26:31 PM PDT by Paladin2 (Islam is the religion of violins, NOT peas.)
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To: blam

I want to know what happened to all the hurricanes which were supposed to destroy the Atlantic and Gulf coasts after this so-called record year for high temperatures. After last years destructive 'canes, all the hystericrats were screeching about hot weather causing hurricanes. Well...where were they this year? Or is there still time for a level five? (smirk)


34 posted on 09/29/2006 4:31:38 PM PDT by driftless2
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To: RegulatorCountry
Temp leads on the downside. Usually CO2 looks like it goes with temp on the upside. If it doesn't lead both ways, it seems unlikely to be causal.

We're still DOOMED!tm - 'rats though.

35 posted on 09/29/2006 4:32:27 PM PDT by Paladin2 (Islam is the religion of violins, NOT peas.)
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To: blam
Between 2003 and 2005, the top layers of the world's oceans cooled slightly, but scientists aren't sure where the heat went.

Hurricanes?

36 posted on 09/29/2006 4:43:52 PM PDT by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: cookcounty
"Between 2003 and 2005, the top layers of the world's oceans cooled slightly, but scientists aren't sure where the heat went.

Uh....maybe into the air.....?

Maybe the excess heat wasn't there to begin with.

37 posted on 09/29/2006 4:46:37 PM PDT by Spirochete
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To: DaveLoneRanger; palmer; ex-Texan; Zon

Ping

Favorite Global Warmer of the day;

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1710760/posts
GORE: CIGARETTE SMOKING 'SIGNIFICANT' CONTRIBUTOR TO GLOBAL WARMING ^

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore warned hundreds of U.N. diplomats and staff on Thursday evening about the perils of climate change, claiming: Cigarette smoking is a "significant contributor to global warming!"

Gore, who was introduced by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said the world faces a "full-scale climate emergency that threatens the future of civilization on earth."

Gore showed computer-generated projections of ocean water rushing in to submerge the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, parts of China, India and other nations, should ice shelves in Antarctica or Greenland melt and slip into the sea.

"The planet itself will do nicely, thank you very much what is at risk is human civilization," Gore said. After a series of Q& A with the audience, which had little to do with global warming and more about his political future, Annan bid "adios" to Gore.

Then, Gore had his staff opened a stack of cardboard boxes to begin selling his new book, "An Inconvenient Truth, The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It," $19.95, to the U.N. diplomats.

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash6.htm


38 posted on 09/29/2006 4:48:18 PM PDT by DaveTesla (You can fool some of the people some of the time......)
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To: defenderSD
"On the other hand, there's not a single thing we can do to stop global cooling: just bundle up, stay indoors and try to survive the cold weather and high food prices."

Not true. There are any number of things. Release lots of stable fluorocarbons (HUGE greenhouse gas effect). Deposit soot (black)in snow-covered areas to change the albedo. Melt the sub-sea methane clathrates to increase atmospheric methane (another very strong greenhouse gas). Build space-borne mirrors to concentrate more solar energy. Burn lots of coal. I suspect there are many others.

39 posted on 09/29/2006 5:15:04 PM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel-NRA)
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To: OK
You will be able to find somebody who says this cooling is caused by global warming.

It's possible the opposite is true, that the warming of the air is somehow caused by the cooling of the ocean. The heat from the ocean had to go somewhere. It could have gone into the atmosphere.

40 posted on 09/29/2006 5:41:54 PM PDT by El Gato
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