'Missing' phytoplankton found, but Trenberth's imaginary heat remains 'missing'

A new study finds "NASA satellites may have missed more than 50% of the phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean, making it far more difficult to estimate the carbon capture potential of this vast area of sea." The paper adds to several other recent peer-reviewed publications demonstrating prior assumptions about the global carbon cycle may be highly erroneous, as well as the modelling derived from these assumptions.

However, Trenberth's imaginary heat from CO2 is still 'missing' from both the atmosphere and the deep oceans. The very sparse, deep-ocean temperature observations show only a 0.01C/decade warming from 1955-1999, which is much, much less than the instrument uncertainty.

Deep ocean observations in green show only 0.01C/decade warming 1955-1999, much less than uncertainty and measurement error. The remaining lines are all from models, which, as usual, are all over the map showing equally warming or cooling. Source

In addition, if the "oceans ate the global warming," steric sea level rise from thermal expansion should have accelerated sea level rise, but the data shows no evidence of acceleration.


Algorithm finds missing phytoplankton in Southern Ocean

by Staff WritersCanberra, Australia (SPX) Sep 24, 2013

To get the observations needed to make valid comparisons and develop the algorithm, the researchers used more than 1000 Southern Ocean phytoplankton samples collected over 10 years and compared these to satellite measurements.

NASA satellites may have missed more than 50% of the phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean, making it far more difficult to estimate the carbon capture potential of this vast area of sea.

But now, new research published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Three improved satellite chlorophyll algorithms for the Southern Ocean (doi:10.1002/jgrc.20270), has led to the development of an algorithm that produces substantially more accurate estimates of Southern Ocean phytoplankton populations.

That research from the University of Tasmania's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) was led by PhD student Rob Johnson and Associate Prof Peter Strutton

"This new algorithm allows us to detect changes in plankton numbers that have previously gone unnoticed," said Mr Johnson.

"This better understanding of the phytoplankton population will, in turn, allow us to gain a much more accurate idea of how much carbon this ocean can take up."

The importance of phytoplankton and their role in our planetary ecosystem cannot be underestimated. They form the base of the marine food chain, produce half the oxygen on Earth and are partly responsible for the ocean uptake of at least a third of total human induced CO2 emissions.

So it was important to understand why existing ocean colour satellites systematically underestimated the chlorophyll concentration (a proxy for phytoplankton biomass) of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica.

To get the observations needed to make valid comparisons and develop the algorithm, the researchers used more than 1000 Southern Ocean phytoplankton samples collected over 10 years and compared these to satellite measurements.

The majority of the samples used in this study were collected by the French Antarctic vessel MV L'Astrolabe through a collaborative and long-term monitoring program between the CSIRO, the Australian Antarctic program, and the French Antarctic Program.

Once this observational data was collected, the new algorithm was used to process satellite data and make comparisons. It quickly became clear that the algorithm produced a much closer estimate of phytoplankton numbers than past satellite measurements.

"Our improved satellite chlorophyll algorithms will be used to produce higher-accuracy observations on the vitally important phytoplankton of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica," said Assoc Prof Peter Strutton.

"This will go a long way towards improving our understanding of how the Southern Ocean works and how the movement of carbon is changing in these remote waters."