New paper shows no correlation between CO2 and Greenland temperatures over past 7,200 years

A recent paper published in Quaternary Science Reviews shows no rational nor consistent relationship between CO2 levels and July air temperatures in West Greenland over the past 7,200 years. The authors also find "summer temperatures were 2-3°C warmer than present" between 6,000 and 4,000 years ago.

From the latest edition of the NIPCC Report:

Holocene histories of atmospheric CO2 concentration and West Greenland air temperature

Reference: Axford, Y., Losee, S., Briner, J.P., Francis, D.R., Langdon, P.G. and Walker, I.R. 2013. Holocene temperature history at the western Greenland Ice Sheet margin reconstructed from lake sediments. Quaternary Science Reviews 59: 87-100.

In a revealing study published in Quaternary Science Reviews, Axford et al. (2013) describe how they examined sedimentary records from five lakes (North, Fishtote, Loon, Iceboom and Pluto) near Jakobshavn Isbrae in central West Greenland, in order to investigate the timing and magnitude of major Holocene climate changes, with their primary objective being "to constrain the timing and magnitude of maximum warmth during the early to middle Holocene positive anomaly in summer insolation," which they did by analyzing various properties of sediment cores they extracted from the lakes in the summers of 2008 and 2009.

So what did they find? "Based upon chironomid assemblages at North Lake, and supported by records of organic sedimentation in all five study lakes," in the words of the six scientists, "we infer warmer-than-present temperatures by at least 7.1 ka [thousands of years before present] and Holocene maximum warmth between 6 and 4 ka," when they indicate that "the local ice sheet margin was at its most retracted Holocene position" and "summer temperatures were 2-3°C warmer than present during that time of minimum ice sheet extent."

A graphical representation of this temperature history is presented in the figure below, along with the concomitant history of earth's atmospheric CO₂ concentration.

Figure 1. Reconstructed July air temperature anomalies in the vicinity of North Lake, inferred from chironomid data using three different calibration formulas (1. Weighted-averaging, orange line with triangle data points, 2. Weighted-averaging with tolerance downweighting, red line with triangle data points, 3. Weighted-averaging partial-least-squares, black line with circle data points), plus the mean of the three sets of results (green line, square data points), as adapted from Axford et al. (2013). Also shown is the concomitant history of earth's atmospheric CO₂ concentration, as obtained from atmospheric measurements carried out at Mauna Loa, Hawaii (Boden et al., 1994), together with ice core data obtained at Law Dome (Etheridge et al., 1998) and Vostock (Keeling and Whorf, 1998), Antarctica.

As can be seen from the figure above, there is absolutely no rational relationship between the Holocene temperature history derived by Axford et al. and the air's CO₂ content. Over the first 1800 years of the record, for example, when the atmosphere's CO₂ concentration rose by a sluggardly 10 ppm, Holocene temperatures rose, in the mean, by about 2.3°C. Then, over the following 2,400 years, when the air's CO₂ content rose by about 20 ppm, mean summer air temperatures dropped by approximately 2.6°C. And over the next 1900 years, when the air's CO₂ content rose by some 10 to 15 ppm, mean air temperature changed not at all. But over the final 300 or so years, when the atmospheric CO₂ concentration rose by a whopping 125 ppm, summer air temperatures first declined by about 1.9°C and then rose by about 1.9°C, for essentially no net change. Clearly, the CO₂ concentration of Earth's atmosphere would appear to have had no consistent impact on July air temperatures in the vicinity of North Lake, Greenland, over the past seven millennia.

Additional References
Boden, T.A., Kaiser, D.P., Sepanski, R.J. and Stoss, F.W. (Eds.). 1994. Trends '93: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. ORNL/CDIAC-65. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Etheridge, D.M., Steele, L.P., Langenfelds, R.L, Francey, R.J., Barnola, J.-M. and Morgan, V.I. 1998. Historical CO₂ records from the Law Dome DE08, DE08-2, and DSS ice cores. In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.

Keeling, C.D. and Whorf, T.P. 1998. Atmospheric CO₂ concentrations -- Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, 1958-1997 (revised August 1998). NDP-001. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Did we say wet becomes wetter and dry becomes drier?

Oops.....we meant wet becomes drier and drier becomes wetter. And we found that there has been a global decline in drought over the last 70 years.
From the latest edition of the NIPCC Report:

Changes in global precipitation over land in a warming world


Reference: Sun, F., Roderick, M.L. and Farquhar, G.D. 2012. Changes in the variability of global land precipitation. Geophysical Research Letters 39: 10.1029/2012GL053369.

Writing as background for their study, Sun et al. (2012) state that "with global warming, climate models project increased precipitation variability in most regions at daily (O'Gorman and Schneider, 2009), monthly (Benestad, 2006) and inter-annual (Rind et al., 1989; Held and Soden, 2006; Boer, 2009; Wetherald, 2010) timescales," while additionally noting that "expectations are for precipitation extremes in storm events to increase with the saturation vapor pressure in the atmosphere," citing Trenberth et al. (2003).

In a study designed to assess the virtues (or not) of climate model precipitation projections, Sun et al. analyzed "observations of monthly precipitation (1940-2009) over the global land surface using a new theoretical framework that can distinguish changes in global precipitation variance between space and time."

In doing so, the three Australian researchers report discovering that "on average, dry regions/months became wetter and wet regions/months became drier over the 1940-2009 period," and they say that "this conclusion holds in all available databases and also holds for 1940-1999." In addition, they further remark that the patterns observed "show no relationship to local or global changes in temperature," and that "if anything, these results constitute a slight decline in meteorological drought over the last 70 years."

Once again, some of the most basic predictions of the world's climate alarmists are found to be invalid for the entire world.

Additional References:

Benestad, R.E. 2006. Can we expect more extreme precipitation on the monthly time scale? Journal of Climate 19: 630-637.

Boer, G.J. 2009. Changes in interannual variability and decadal potential predictability under global warming. Journal of Climate 22: 3098-3109.

Held, I.M. and Soden, B.J. 2006. Robust responses of the hydrological cycle to global warming. Journal of Climate 19: 5686-5699.

O'Gorman, P.A. and Schneider, T. 2009. The physical basis for increases in precipitation extremes in simulations of 21st-century climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 106: 14,773-14,777.

Rind, D., Goldberg, R. and Ruedy, R. 1989. Change in climate variability in the 21st century. Climatic Change 13: 5-37.

Trenberth, K.E., Dai, A., Rasmussen, R.M. and Parsons, D.B. 2003. The changing character of precipitation. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 84: 1205-1217.

Wetherald, R.T. 2010. Changes of time mean state and variability of hydrology in response to a doubling and quadrupling of CO2. Climatic Change 102: 651-670.

Paper finds warming causes fewer storms

A recent paper published in Nature Geoscience examines storm activity in the English Channel over the past 6,500 years and finds that warm periods are associated with fewer storms and cold periods with more storms, just the opposite of what the world's climate alarmists would have everyone believe.

The authors conclude that "in light of concerns about the impact of anthropogenic greenhouse gases on extreme storm events in the coming years/decades, our results indicate that modern coupled ocean-atmosphere dynamics at North Atlantic mid-latitudes should tend towards the low phase of the 1,500-year internal oceanic cycle, in contrast to Little Ice Age climate conditions."

From the latest edition of the NIPCC Report:

Storms of the Northern Hemisphere

Reference: Sorrel, P., Debret, M., Billeaud, I., Jaccard, S.L., McManus, J.F. and Tessier, B. 2012. Persistent non-solar forcing of Holocene storm dynamics in coastal sedimentary archives. Nature Geoscience 5: 892-896.

According to Sorrel et al. (2012), "the macrotidal Seine Estuary and Mont-Saint-Michel Bay are two coastal sedimentary systems both located along the southern coast of the English Channel in northwestern France," an area that they say is "well suited to investigate long-term storminess variability because it is exposed to the rapidly changing North Atlantic climate system, which has a substantial influence on the Northern Hemisphere in general."

In light of the great significance of the facts described above, Sorrel et al. go on to present "a reappraisal of high-energy estuarine and coastal sedimentary records from the southern coast of the English Channel," and in doing so, they report finding "evidence for five distinct periods during the Holocene when storminess was enhanced during the past 6,500 years."

Specifically, the six scientists say they found that "high storm activity occurred periodically with a frequency of about 1,500 years, closely related to cold and windy periods diagnosed earlier (Bond et al., 2001; Wanner et al., 2008; Wanner et al., 2011)." And they go on to show that "millennial-scale storm extremes in northern Europe are phase-locked with the period of internal ocean variability in the North Atlantic of about 1,500 years (Debret et al., 2009)," with the last extreme stormy period "coinciding with the early to mid-Little Ice Age," while "in contrast, the warm Medieval Climate Optimum was characterized by low storm activity (Sorrel et al., 2009; Sabatier et al., 2012)."

Sorrel et al. conclude that "in light of concerns about the impact of anthropogenic greenhouse gases on extreme storm events in the coming years/decades, our results indicate that modern coupled ocean-atmosphere dynamics at North Atlantic mid-latitudes should tend towards the low phase of the 1,500-year internal oceanic cycle, in contrast to Little Ice Age climate conditions [italics added]," which state of affairs suggests that warming should lead to relatively less storminess, or just the opposite of what the world's climate alarmists would have everyone believe.

Additional References:

Bond, G., Kromer, B., Beer, J., Muscheler, R., Evans, M.N., Showers, W., Hoffmann, S., Lotti-Bond, R., Hajdas, I. and Bonani, G. 2001. Persistent solar influence on North Atlantic climate during the Holocene. Science 294: 2130-2136.

Debret, M., Sebag, D., Costra, X., Massei, N., Petit, J.R., Chapron, E. and Bout-Roumazeilles, V. 2009. Evidence from wavelet analysis for a mid-Holocene transition in global climate forcing. Quaternary Science Reviews 28: 2675-2688.

Sabatier, P., Dezileau, L., Colin, C., Briqueu, L., Bouchette, F., Martinex, P., Siani, G., Raynal, O. and von Grafenstein, U. 2012. 7000 years of paleostorm activity in the NW Mediterranean Sea in response to Holocene climate events. Quaternary Research 77: 1-11.

Sorrel, P., Tessier, B., Demory, F., Delsinne, N. and Mouaze, D. 2009. Evidence for millennial-scale climatic events in the sedimentary infilling of a macrotidal estuarine system, the Seine estuary (NW France). Quaternary Science Reviews 28: 499-516.

Wanner, H., Beer, J., Butikofer, J., Crowley, T.J., Cubasch, U., Fluckiger, J., Goose, H., Grosjean, M., Fortunat, J., Kaplan, J.O., Kuttel, M., Muller, S.A., Prentice, I.C., Solomina, O., Stocker, T.F., Tarasov, P., Wagner, M. and Widmann, M. 2008. Mid- to Late Holocene climate change: an overview. Quaternary Science Reviews 27: 1791-1828.

Wanner, H., Solomina, O., Grosjean, M., Ritz, S. and Jetel, M. 2011. Structure and origin of Holocene cold events. Quaternary Science Reviews 30: 3109-3123.

Prior posts on storm activity

New paper finds Antarctic sea ice increasing despite models predicting decrease

A paper published yesterday in Geophysical Research Letters finds, "The recent observed positive trends in total Antarctic sea ice extent are at odds with the expectation of melting sea ice in a warming world. More problematic yet, climate models indicate that sea ice should decrease around Antarctica in response to both increasing greenhouse gases and stratospheric ozone depletion." In fact, Antarctic sea ice has been at or near record high levels for the past several years. The authors conclude, "that it may prove difficult to attribute the observed trends in total Antarctic sea ice to anthropogenic [man-made] forcings."

Antarctic sea ice extent has been at or near record highs

Can natural variability explain observed Antarctic sea ice trends? New modeling evidence from CMIP5

Lorenzo M. Polvani, Karen L. Smith

Abstract: The recent observed positive trends in total Antarctic sea ice extent are at odds with the expectation of melting sea ice in a warming world. More problematic yet, climate models indicate that sea ice should decrease around Antarctica in response to both increasing greenhouse gases and stratospheric ozone depletion. The resolution of this puzzle, we suggest, may lie in the large natural variability of the coupled atmosphere–ocean-sea-ice system. Contrasting forced and control integrations from four state-of-the-art models, we show that the observed Antarctic sea ice trend falls well within the distribution of trends arising naturally in the system, and that the forced response in the models is small compared to the natural variability. From this, we conclude that it may prove difficult to attribute the observed trends in total Antarctic sea ice to anthropogenic forcings, although some regional features might be easier to explain.

The High Cost of Low-Value Wind Power

A study published in Regulation magazine finds government-subsidized wind power "represents bad economics and bad energy policy, for at least three reasons. First and foremost, wind generation’s production pattern is not only volatile and unpredictable, it also has low economic value" because it generates the  least amount of power when it is most needed.

The High Cost of Low-Value Wind Power
Subsidized wind generates the least amount of power when it is most needed.


Conclusion:

Continued subsidies for wind generation, both in the form of tax credits and mandatory renewable portfolio standards, represent bad economics and bad energy policy, for at least three reasons. First and foremost, wind generation’s production pattern is not only volatile and unpredictable, it also has low economic value. Rather than displacing high variable-cost fossil generating resources used to meet peak demand, wind
generation’s availability peaks when electricity demand is lowest. As a result, wind generation tends to displace low variable cost generation or simply forces baseload generators to pay greater amounts to inject power onto the grid because the units cannot be turned off and on cost-effectively. Thus, consumers
and taxpayers are forced to subsidize low-value electricity. 
...

Ultimately, continued subsidization of wind generation simply rewards a few niche generation companies and their suppliers, at the expense of the many. Given the massive federal debt and anemic U.S. economic recovery, this type of pernicious wealth redistribution cannot be justified.

The global solar cartel is making solar energy even more uncompetitive

The Global Solar Cartel

Subsidies, then tariffs, and now fixing prices and quotas.

WSJ.COM 5/23/13: The Obama Administration and European Union are looking for ways to avoid a trade war with China over solar-energy panels. Their brilliant proposed solution? A global cartel enforced by government.

The U.S. Commerce Department set duties on Chinese-made solar cells in October after an investigation ruled that Beijing unfairly subsidizes its panel makers. The European Commission followed this month, proposing tariffs of up to 67.9%. China, in turn, threatened last week to impose duties on American and EU exports of polysilicon, the raw material in solar cells. The EU taxes are due to take effect next month.

Ending the tariffs and subsidies on all sides would be the easiest solution, though never count on Washington and Brussels to choose market sanity over political intervention. The deal taking shape will require Chinese solar firms to sell in America and Europe at above-market prices and in restricted quantities. The hope is that by guaranteeing panel makers across all three continents a profit, the green economy can power onward.

Call it tragicomic that the only way for the U.S. and EU to achieve their green objectives is to embrace China's model of state-managed capitalism. But the story is also a parable of how the cronyism inherent in the renewable-energy industry can clash with environmental goals.

American and European panel makers, notably the Bonn-based SolarWorld, have lobbied heavily for tariffs, but the solar-energy producers and installers rightly complain that this will raise their costs. Higher panel prices will raise consumer prices for solar power, which is still uncompetitive despite huge subsidies.

Beijing wouldn't be supporting Chinese panel makers at all without the market for solar components that renewable-energy subsidies created in the West. In subsidizing one industry, Western governments generated clamor for trade protections in another. Washington and Brussels need to layer intervention upon intervention to keep their green agendas afloat.

This all recalls the 1980s when Washington worked out deals with Tokyo to resolve trade disputes over cars, electronics and other manufactured goods. Japanese auto makers could sell in America up to a fixed quota, for instance, and American firms were guaranteed a fixed share of the Japanese memory chip market.

"Managed trade" was the term of art for this sort of protectionism. The problem vanished when American chip makers like Intel diversified into higher-value chips in which they were superior to Japanese firms. But consumers on both sides of the Pacific were clear losers. The so-called voluntary import and export restraints kept prices artificially high.

A return to managed trade today would do similar damage. But it also underscores how the green-energy project has from the start been a politically directed exercise that depends on government to survive.

How taxpayers subsidized Tesla to make the rich richer

The Other Government Motors

Tesla by the numbers: How taxpayers made an electric car company.

WSJ.COM 5/24/13: The list of the Obama Administration's industrial policy failures is long, from Solyndra to Fisker Automotive. But now we are hearing that one success redeems them all: Tesla Motors . Tesla's share price has soared this year on rave reviews for its electric car, growing sales and its first quarterly profit.

Rarely noted is how much this profit is a function of government subsidy and coercion. So let's take apart Tesla by the numbers, if only to give our reader-taxpayers a better sense of what they've paid to make Tesla's owners rich.

The decade-old Tesla debuted its first product, the Roadster, in 2006. With a base price of $109,000, it was discontinued before it hit 2,500 sales. Tesla introduced its Model S a year ago and had sold an estimated 9,650 at a bargain $70,000 through April. By contrast, Ford sold 168,843 F-series pickup trucks in the first quarter alone.

Tesla wouldn't have sold even that many cars without the extraordinary help of government. In 2009 the company received a $465 million Obama loan guarantee, supplemented last year by a $10 million grant from the California Energy Commission.

That money has underwritten Tesla's engineering and manufacturing, but federal and state governments also subsidize the purchase of Tesla products. Any U.S. buyer of a Tesla car qualifies for a $7,500 federal tax credit, while states like Colorado throw in up to $6,000 more in state income-tax credits. Taxpayers pay first so Tesla can build the cars and again to help the wealthy buy them.

These subsidies are important enough to Tesla that its website features an "Incentives" section directing buyers where to look for their states' electric-vehicle benefits—rebates, free parking, exemptions from state sales tax, use of high-occupancy lanes, and the like. Buyers from states that offer no incentives get this Tesla message: "Want to help make EV [electric vehicle] incentives a reality in your area? Encourage your local or state representative by calling or sending them a letter."

Tesla's biggest windfall has been the cash payments it extracts from rival car makers (and their customers), via its sale of zero-emission credits. A number of states including California require that traditional car makers reach certain production quotas of zero-emission vehicles—or to purchase credits if they cannot. Tesla is a main supplier.

A Morgan Stanley report in April said Tesla made $40.5 million on credits in 2012, and that it could collect $250 million in 2013. Tesla acknowledged in a recent SEC filing that emissions credit sales hit $85 million in 2013's first quarter alone—15% of its revenue, and the only reason it made a profit.

Take away the credits and Tesla lost $53 million in the first quarter, or $10,000 per car sold. California's zero-emission credits provided $67.9 million to the company in the first quarter, and the combination of that state's credits and federal and local incentives can add up to $45,000 per Tesla sold, according to an analysis by the Los Angeles Times.

One irony is that rival car makers—even those making electric hybrids or gasoline subcompacts—don't get the same benefit from zero-emissions mandates. As environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg notes, manufacturing and charging electric cars over their life cycle can produce more carbon than small, gas-powered vehicles. Yet Tesla is cashing in because of the policy bias for fully-electric cars.

Another irony is that the main beneficiaries of this electric-car largesse belong to—well, the 1%. Tesla co-founder Elon Musk is already a successful entrepreneur, and his estimated net worth has soared past $4 billion thanks to the IPOs of Tesla and Solar City (a separate operation that received a $344 million federal loan guarantee).

Also realizing Tesla IPO windfalls are the elite of Silicon Valley venture capital: the Westly Group (whose principal, Steve Westly, is an Obama campaign bundler), Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and VantagePoint Venture Partners. Other paupers in the Tesla venture include or have included Daimler, Fidelity Investments, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Hyatt heir Nick Pritzker, and former eBay president Jeff Skoll. The state-owned Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority last year booked a $113 million profit selling its share of Tesla. You're welcome.

Tesla isn't oblivious to the politics of all this, and on Wednesday it said it had fully repaid its government loan. That's good, since Tesla's long-term prospects are far from certain. The major auto makers will soon have their own zero-emissions vehicles, which Mr. Musk says will end Tesla's credits boom by year end. Analysts are also warning that Tesla has yet to show it can sell its very pricey car to a mass market.

***

Tesla's investors claim this taxpayer support is worth it if it creates a new electric-car company, and for them it is. But such a success must still be measured against other taxpayer losses and misallocated capital.

And even if Tesla's cars do sell, the policy question is why billionaires in California couldn't have financed the business themselves. Why should middle-class taxpayers whose incomes are falling still pay to subsidize the purchase of cars that only the affluent can afford, and then partly as a gesture of their superior environmental virtue? When does the rest of America get its return on Tesla's profits?

New paper finds another non-hockey-stick in Peru

Climate activist Lonnie Thompson has finally published his paper today on ice core data from the Quelccaya ice cap in Peru, data that Steve McIntyre requested to be archived for years. Plotting the variance-adjusted online data shows a non-hockey-stick from 1900-2009, with temperatures during the 1930's exceeding those of the 21st century and end of the record in 2009.

Relative temperature proxy on vertical axis, year on horizontal axis

Tallbloke previously posted the 1,800 year series here:

Science 24 May 2013: 
Vol. 340 no. 6135 pp. 945-950 
DOI: 10.1126/science.1234210

• RESEARCH ARTICLE

Annually Resolved Ice Core Records of Tropical Climate Variability over the Past ~1800 Years

1. L. G. Thompson¹,²,*, 
2. E. Mosley-Thompson¹,³, 
3. M. E. Davis¹, 
4. V. S. Zagorodnov¹, 
5. I. M. Howat¹,², 
6. V. N. Mikhalenko⁴,
7. P.-N. Lin¹

+Author Affiliations

1. ¹Byrd Polar Research Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
2. ²School of Earth Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
3. ³Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
4. ⁴Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.

1. ↵*Corresponding author. E-mail: thompson.3@osu.edu

• ABSTRACT
• EDITOR'S SUMMARY

Ice cores from low latitudes can provide a wealth of unique information about past climate in the tropics, but they are difficult to recover and few exist. Here, we report annually resolved ice core records from the Quelccaya ice cap (5670 meters above sea level) in Peru that extend back ~1800 years and provide a high-resolution record of climate variability there. Oxygen isotopic ratios (δ¹⁸O) are linked to sea surface temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific, whereas concentrations of ammonium and nitrate document the dominant role played by the migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone in the region of the tropical Andes. Quelccaya continues to retreat and thin. Radiocarbon dates on wetland plants exposed along its retreating margins indicate that it has not been smaller for at least six millennia.

Study: Fracking is cleaner than conventional methods of gas production

Study: Hydraulic fracturing cleaner than conventional methods

by David Rothbard 

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Does hydraulic fracturing produce more wastewater than conventional natural gas production? Surprisingly, Dr. Brian Lutz, professor of biogeochemistry, says ‘no,’ and is here to explain why: “We looked at data for nearly 2,200 Marcellus Shale gas wells across Pennsylvania and we compared the amount of wastewater that they were producing to that from conventional natural gas wells throughout the same area. We found that shale gas wells generated about ten times more wastewater than conventional wells but we also found that shale gas wells produced about 30 times more natural gas. So this means that conventional wells generate about three times more wastewater than hydraulically fractured shale wells to produce the same amount of natural gas.”

Prior posts on fracking

Cost to convert to 'green' energy is ~53% of total assets of US

In the dot-chat held by Andy Revkin today, solar panel financier Billy Parish claims the cost to convert the US to a green energy future is $100 Trillion. By way of comparison, the total assets of the United States are $188 trillion. Thus, it would require 53% of the entire assets of the US to convert to 'green' energy, for no benefit to the climate nor control of the weather.

Even if the US converted to green energy, it wouldn't keep the lights on.

Why ocean warming and sea level rise from CO2 is not possible

This post from the Dutch "Climate Fraud" site builds on prior Hockey Schtick posts explaining why infrared back-radiation from greenhouse gases cannot heat the oceans or cause sea-level rise from thermal expansion, including:

• RealClimate admits doubling CO2 could only heat the oceans 0.002ºC at most 
• Why Greenhouse Gases Won't Heat the Oceans
• Yes, the ocean has warmed; no, it’s not ‘global warming’ And warm water does not sink

Google translation from the Dutch "Climate Fraud" site:

Ocean warming and sea level rise by CO2 is not possible

Researchers have determined that the CO2 greenhouse effect does not affect sea level rise. There is an inverse relationship, because it turns out that the temperature of the atmosphere depends on the sea level. This is possible because a higher sea level, in turn, means that expansion has occurred because more heat (energy) is in the ocean. The researchers initially tried to find evidence of the AGW hypothesis that atmospheric warming by CO2 and / or CO2 IR radiation to the ocean forces it to heat up, but discovered contrary to expectation, in that this is not the case. Although this initially seemed to be the case in the last decades, the relationship turned around in 1940 to fall away completely. The warming  came internally from the ocean and that is the cause of global warming and not the result. According to AGW are huge amounts of extra energy stored by global warming in the ocean. This extra amount of energy is expected to keep over time, the warming mode and is used as an excuse for the absence of the predicted temperatures. This despite the fact that the ocean since 1997 shows no further warming and this even decreases from 2005 (top 700 m), and the predictions of this ocean warming have also failed. The above findings are therefore a huge nail in the coffin of the AGW hypothesis because it indicates that the IR back-radiation from CO2 to the earth can not heat up sea water, and also not indirectly via the atmosphere. There is strictly unidirectional heat transfer from the global ocean to the atmosphere. I have already pointed this out and will now explain.

How is the ocean warmed?

Where does the energy come from being recorded? Into the ocean This is purely illustrative of the sun, of the incident sunlight on the water surface is at the equator only 3% is reflected and reaches 97% up to 100 meters deep, and is converted into heat. Two-thirds of this energy escapes to the surface by water evaporation. The water evaporation is dependent only on the temperature of the water and independent of the temperature of the atmosphere. Besides temperature, the evaporation does depend on various material properties, pressure, flow rates and convection (basically gravity).That increased greenhouse radiation by CO2 can warm the oceans is an AGW fable, the long-wave infrared radiation from the atmosphere has a low energy (wavelength) that can penetrate no deeper than a fraction of a millimeter (10 micrometers).This is much less than the boundary layer where evaporation takes place (500 micrometers), and that's the only thing the infrared radiation can do, help to evaporate water.

In the above diagram, the penetration depth of the IR radiation not even noticeable because these far right is off the scale over 13.5 micrometers. A close up of the IR field we see in the following chart.

This is all IR, so only the IR wavelengths of the sun walking to 7 microns (Most radiation from the sun is in the IR region). The wavelengths of CO2 derived are only between 13.5 and 16.5 microns, and here we see that this radiation can come. Only 5 to 10 microns deep the ocean surface is on average three degrees warmer than the atmosphere. Where the surface has occasionally been cooler than the atmosphere (due to wind), the atmosphere possible by guiding the top micrometers from the water will be heated, but also this will not result in water evaporation, and to global warming. The evaporation boundary layer has: a special temperature gradient as we shall see shortly. Apart from this the upper 700m of the ocean has 50 times as much mass as the entire atmosphere. The specific heat of water is 4 times higher than that of air, thus holding 200 times as much heat energy as the total atmosphere (for the overall ocean, this is even 1200 times as much). The ocean warms the atmosphere mainly by evaporation and not vice versa.

The boundary layer of the water evaporation

There is a very important phenomenon in the evaporation boundary layer of the surface occurs, the layer where water evaporates and enters the atmosphere.

Below is a very nice diagram ( Schematic plot of open ocean surface thermal structures ) that the temperature in water indicates depending on the depth below the surface. The top value on the y-axis indicates the 10 micron up to IR radiation comes true, the next value below it is already 1 mm deep (1000 microns) far beyond the range of IR radiation. the temperature rises up to the right, and curve (a) overnight (b) during the day.

In general, the temperature in the ocean higher from the bottom (2 ° C) to the surface (17 ° C). However, in the thin film of the upper 500 microns, we see that this is suddenly reversed smoothly, it is becoming increasingly cooler closer to the surface area increases. This is the boundary layer, from where water evaporation takes place, and here the temperature drops a few tenths of a degree. This immediately indicates that the atmosphere above the water is cooler than the water. We see that this temperature gradient in the boundary layer persists overnight (a). Daytime (b) when the sun shines we see the temperature profile of the upper few meters a whole shift to higher temperatures. This is therefore the result of the solar radiation that heats the sea water clearly, and the closer to the surface, the stronger the warming. But despite that, there is the negative temperature gradient in the boundary layer while the water evaporation increases. Look what happens next when the sun goes down. The ocean surface cools by evaporation and the profile falls back to a situation Imagines that the greenhouse effect works day and night, and thus send radiation toward the ocean surface. Any guidance is also independent. But look at the profile, the first few meters below the boundary layer warms night totally on the contrary it has slumped to a straight line or the temperature is uneven and there is no heat transfer. That this is not possible we already knew from the low penetration of IR radiation, but the day and night profile is a second proof of the impossibility of global ocean CO2 or even the natural greenhouse effect . We see here is that this is not possible, by conduction. above temperature profiles are provided by various studies as Donlon et al ., the following sentence from this study says "In all cases, the absorption of shortwave radiation in the molecular boundary skin layer is not enough to overcome the heat loss due to the sensible and latent heat fluxes, and the SSTskin remains cooler than the water beneath. ".Or even the absorption of the sunlight in the vaporization boundary layer is always proved to be insufficient to compensate for the heat loss due to vaporization (latent heat) and guide the boundary layer is always cooler than the water below it. So there is no chance for the weak IR radiation to target other than additional water evaporation (= cooling) something out.

Specific phenomena in the boundary layer

For the diehards, I can dive a little further into the phenomena in the boundary layer, so there is a schedule in the paper Estimating Sea Surface Temperature From Infrared Satellite and In Situ Temperature Data . It shows the three most common situations.

Left the free convection at low wind speeds. See that decreasing the temperature in the boundary layer of water we saw before, must first also extend over the atmosphere. This is a typical feature that we know by heat transfer by conduction, and there we can also see the direction of heat conduction.

Additionally, we see indicates that there are three types of heat energy play a role that all flows from ocean to atmosphere. This concerns guide (5%), radiation (20%) and latent heat (70%) of the water vapor. water in the boundary layer is continuously cooled down by the evaporation (the formation of vapor requires heat energy, and extracts this to the water) , drops down and is replaced by warmer water underneath (uplift). It is worth a moment to stand still here, because what is the net result where ocean and atmosphere get in touch with each other? The result of water evaporation is that the ocean continuously cools . At higher wind speeds (middle) forced convection arises. The temperature difference is less here because there are turbulence which allows for a more rapid replacement of hot water by the cold. At high wind speeds (on the right) may periodically break down the boundary layer, wherein the temperature difference in the boundary layer of the ocean is constant. But still remains higher than the temperature of the atmosphere and most of them are heat conduction from the ocean to the atmosphere place. Key points:

• CO2 radiation can not heat the ocean
• The greenhouse effect can not heat the ocean
• The atmosphere can not heat the ocean
• Heat transfer from the atmosphere ensures water evaporation
• Water Evaporation cools the ocean off
• The ocean warms the atmosphere in three ways

relevant links: The influence of solar intensity at the ocean The ocean is cooler and the sea level rise decreases Climate models in the error affects ocean is much greater

Update 12-05-2012

Oceanographer Dr.. Robert E. Stevenson writes in his report  on page 8:

The atmosphere can not warm until the under lying surface warms first. The lower atmosphere is transparent to direct solar radiation, Preventing it from being Significantly warmed by sunlight alone. The surface atmosphere osmanthus gets its warmth in three ways: from direct contact with the oceans, from infrared radiation off the ocean surface, and, from the removal of latent heat from the ocean by evaporation. Consequently, the temperature of the lower atmosphere is Largely Determined by the temperature of the ocean.

Warming the ocean is not a simple matter, not like heating a small glass of water. The first thing to remember Is that the ocean is not warmed by the overlying air.