Claim: Warming of 0.09°C over the past 55 years is 'slowly but steadily cooking the world’s oceans'

A news article published today claims "climate change is slowly but steadily cooking the world’s oceans," and that "some 378 million Hiroshima bombs worth of heat a year [allegedly from Mann-made global warming] are begging for our attention." Yet, for some reason, the article fails to mention that the world's oceans have only warmed a tiny nine-hundredths-of-one-degree [0.09°C] over the past 55 years, at a rate of about 2-one-thousandths-of-one-degree [0.0016°C] per year. 

The article is recycled propaganda from a recent post on 'Skeptical Science' that claims a much bigger graph is needed to show the 0.09°C global ocean warming over the past 55 years [Levitus et al 2012]. Apparently, they think making a graph larger will create a bigger impact from the tiny hundredths-of-a-degree world ocean warming since 1957, rather than adjusting the axis scale.  

As usual, their post and this new article carefully avoid mentioning that the temperature change of the surface to 2000 meters depth of the global oceans was only 0.09°C over 55 years, as was clearly stated in the Levitus et al 2012 paper from which their post and graph was derived, instead only displaying the data in scary and 'sciencey' sounding Joules and Hiroshima bombs [and previously, as kitten sneezes].

Furthermore, they claim ocean warming has not 'paused' and continues to accelerate, however, ocean heat content observations since the deployment of the ARGO float system in 2004, which provide much higher quality data show a slowing of ocean heat content change, even after the ARGO data was up-justed by Josh Willis from a cooling trend to a warming trend. 

For additional rebuttal, please see the hockeyschtick repost following the 'news' article:

Climate change is slowly but steadily cooking the world’s oceans

By Gwynn Guilford @sinoceros February 4, 2014  QUARTZ QZ.COM

The sea absorbs 90% of global warming.

Because the ocean’s so big—it takes up more than 70% of the planet’s surface—it absorbs a lot of energy without anyone being much the wiser. Here’s a look at data for the upper 2,000 meters (1.14 miles) of the global ocean. Check out the three-month moving average for the last quarter of 2013, via the National Oceanographic Data Center, which actually goes off the chart:


​ National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC)

Roughly speaking, from about 1980 to 2000, the ocean gained around 50 zettajoules (ZJ, or 1021 joules) of heat. But from 2000 to 2013, it added another 150 ZJs of heat. Of course, even if you knew what a zettajoule is, it’s hard to envision what this means. Science Skeptic, a blog on climate change, offers this useful analogy: Over the last half-dozen or so decades, the ocean’s been storing the heat energy equivalent of about two Hiroshima bombs per second. Worryingly, that rate’s picking up, with around four bombs per second stored in the last 16 years.

In 2013, however, the ocean gained the heat equivalent to about 12 bombs per second, says Science Skeptic.

That adds up to more than 378 million atomic bombs a year worth of heat. That’s troublesome, considering that warmer waters are thought to make hurricanes and typhoons more severe, including Typhoon Haiyan, which ravaged the Philippines in 2013. Warmer waters also cause global sea levels to rise, threatening property values and exacerbating flooding.


​”Thermosteric” means how much sea surface height changes due to temperature-induced expansion or contraction of ocean volume. National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC)

The variation in surface temperature is a big reason people suspect that the earth is getting warmer.

Deep-ocean temperatures are among the more consistent indicators of how our climate is changing. Solar energy transmitted by greenhouse gases doesn’t necessarily translate to warmer surface temperatures, which are also influenced by a slew of other factors, including wind and current. In the last decade, around one-third of global warming showed up 700 meters under the sea’s surface or deeper, according to research (pdf) by Magdalena A. Balmaseda, Kevin E. Trenberth and Erland Källén published last year.

So while it’s easy to ignore what’s going on a mile under the waves, some 378 million Hiroshima bombs worth of heat a year are begging for our attention.

REBUTTAL:

Skeptical Science thinks 0.09°C ocean warming since 1957 can't fit on a graph

The Skeptical Science kidz are up to their usual paid-propaganda tactics with a new post claiming that a much bigger graph is needed to show the 0.09°C global ocean warming over the past 55 years [Levitus et al 2012]. Apparently, they think making a graph larger will create a bigger impact from the tiny hundredths-of-a-degree world ocean warming since 1957, rather than adjusting the axis scale.  

As usual, their post carefully avoids mentioning that the temperature change of the surface to 2000 meters depth of the global oceans was only 0.09°C over 55 years, as was clearly stated in the Levitus et al 2012 paper from which their post and graph was derived, instead only displaying the data in scary and 'sciencey' sounding Joules and Hiroshima bombs [and previously, as kitten sneezes].

Furthermore, they claim ocean warming has not 'paused' and continues to accelerate, however, ocean heat content observations since the deployment of theARGO float system in 2004, which provide much higher quality data show a slowing of ocean heat content change, even after the ARGO data was up-justed by Josh Willis from a cooling trend to a warming trend. 

The boyz are also very careful not to mention that:

• The Levitus et al paper also demonstrates that the IPCC exaggerates the effect of man on climate by a factor of more than 5 times
• 
  
• IPCC climate models exaggerate ocean warming by 66,590 Hiroshima bombs per day
• 
  
• The ocean warming is not from longwave infrared from increased greenhouse gases
• 
  
• Due the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics, an ocean that is 0.09C warmer can only warm the atmosphere by an additional 0.09°C. 
• 
  
• Douglass & Knox disproved the assumptions behind the Kitten/Hiroshima analogy used by Cook/Nuccitelli  [here and here]
• 
  
• Why the 'one Hiroshima bomb every four seconds' claim is another AGW lie 
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• 72 billion Hiroshima bombs of 'missing heat' went into the oceans naturally during the last interglacial 
• 
  
• The Pacific Ocean has been significantly warmer than the present throughout vast majority of past 10,000 years 
• 
  
• Even RealClimate admits doubling CO2 could only heat the oceans 0.002ºC at most 
• 
  

• There has been no statistically significant surface or atmospheric warming for the past 20 years. The atmosphere has to warm first if greenhouse gases are to have any effect whatsoever on warming of the oceans. The mechanism behind global warming theory is that CO2 in the atmosphere “traps heat” – warming the atmosphere. If the atmosphere isn’t warming, then this mechanism isn’t happening. Thus, anyone who claims that CO2 is directly warming the deep oceans is delusional.
• 
  
• Climate scientists claimed for decades that AGW would cause land temperatures to warm before ocean temperatures, but when land temperatures stopped rising, started to claim the exact opposite that ocean temperatures could rise first.
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• The new paper from Kevin Trenberth, one of the SkS boyz, shows the rate of change in global ocean heat content decreased since ~2001 throughout the 'pause'

I wonder why?

Ocean heat content 0-700 meters has plateaued since ~2004, when much higher quality data became available from the ARGO float system. Data shown after up-justed from cooling to warming trend by Josh Willis of NASA/JPL