NASA./JPL Study - Tahoe, Other Big Sierra Lakes Warming Faster Than Surrounding Atmosphere

[hatrack]

Lake Tahoe, Clear Lake and four other large lakes in Northern California and Nevada are warming faster than the surrounding atmosphere, suggesting climate change may affect aquatic environments faster and sooner. The findings are reported in a new study led by researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

They used 18 years of temperature data from satellite sensors. It is believed to be the first time data have been dissected to reveal lake surface temperature over a period that long. The other lakes in the study are Lake Almanor and Mono Lake in California, and Pyramid Lake and Walker Lake in Nevada.

Results show that the surface water temperature of the lakes rose two times faster, on average, than the regional air temperature. "It was a big surprise to see that," said Philipp Schneider, the study's lead author and a post-doctoral research scientist at the NASA lab.

"If it turns out they're actually changing faster than the air temperature, then there's a whole new phenomenon going on here," he said. "The lake ecosystems are going to be very much affected, especially because the trend we observed seems to be quite rapid."

EDIT

http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/2422319.html

[pscot]

1. I guess I'm surprised

that scientists are surprised by this. Water is a great heat sink. That's not new information.

[truedelphi]

2. Also consider the chemtrails

I live one quarter mile from CLear Lake, the largest lake in California.

Every time I visit the shores of the lake, there are planes clearing the northern set of foot hills at around two thousand feet (Sometimes less)

They then soar to over thirty thousand feet and then drop back down to clear the southern set of fotthills (Some eight miles or so away from the northern set)

So I sit and watch these planes and they are emitting something that can only be decribed as a chemtrail

They cannot be commercial planes, because what pilot is his or her right mind would travel in one huge V? Up to 30K feet and then down to seven thousand feet in just eight miles of travel?

[Nederland]

3. That doesn't make sense

If "climate change may affect aquatic environments faster and sooner", why are the oceans cooling?

[joshcryer]

5. Source? The oceans are in constant flux, but the long term trend is warming.

[Nederland]

8. You can't really claim that

Here is the source of the data I'm referring to:

http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/

A paper using the data is here:

http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3152


You cannot claim the long term trend is warming because we don't have good long term data. From the home page of the ARGO project:

Lack of sustained observations of the atmosphere, oceans and land have hindered the development and validation of climate models. An example comes from a recent analysis which concluded that the currents transporting heat northwards in the Atlantic and influencing western European climate had weakened by 30% in the past decade. This result had to be based on just five research measurements spread over 40 years. Was this change part of a trend that might lead to a major change in the Atlantic circulation, or due to natural variability that will reverse in the future, or is it an artifact of the limited observations?

In 1999, to combat this lack of data, an innovative step was taken by scientists to greatly improve the collection of observations inside the ocean through increased sampling of old and new quantities and increased coverage in terms of time and area.

That step was Argo.

ARGO was created to plug a hole in the dataset, and it is doing an excellent job. I will point out one thing: if you do a Google search on ocean temperatures and the ARGO array you might find a bunch of misleading articles claiming that the array shows that oceans are cooling by enormous amounts. The initial data did show that, but it was determined that the cause was a flaw in the floats. After the flaw was corrected, the massive cooling disappeared, but the oceans still showed a very slight amount of cooling. The reason for the slight cooling is the subject of great debate.

Here is a fairly recent graph of the temperatures:

[joshcryer]

12. 5 year graph = short term trend = inconslusive.

I didn't say that Argo was able to show a warming trend, we have that from other data sets. Although it will be nice when Argo can show the warming in 10-15 years from now, since people have a problem with compiling various data sets in order to discover a trend.

http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/global_change_analysis.html



Paper: ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat08.pdf

[Nederland]

14. I would agree

The current data is of insufficient length to establish a trend. However, as I asserted earlier, you can't use the older data to establish a trend either because it has numerous quality and coverage issues. If it was good quality, they would have never built the ARGO array. All we can do is wait.

[joshcryer]

15. You can still do your best to correct the data. But, yes, it will be good to have one...

...set of instruments to prove the trend. This is why I like CLARREO. It will be able to make such refined measurements of the planet that no one could dispute that it was warming, you could even throw out all of the past instrument record if you were so inclined, as you are doing here with Argo.

http://clarreo.larc.nasa.gov/

[Nederland]

16. Thanks for the link

As you say, CLARREO is exactly what we need: an indisputable measurement tool. It's a shame the first satellite won't go up for another few years. I wish we had something like this 10 years ago.

[joshcryer]

18. Almost a decade for CLARREO. :(

6 years, plus one or possibly two for the initial calibration run. We won't see data from it until well into the next decade. Shame, but what can ya do. It'll blow minds with how accurate it is though.

[pscot]

6. Melting ice

Elementary, my dear Watson.

[Nederland]

7. Do the math

Yes, the quantities of ice melting are huge, by they look small compared to the total amount of water in the oceans. You cannot explain the slight cooling that exists by ice melt.

[joshcryer]

13. Ahh, there's no cooling, it's just leveled off the past few years. Melting ice could be the reason.

It would be interesting to find a discussion on this.

[Nederland]

17. There is cooling

http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3152

From 2003 to 2008, cooling occurred at a rate of 0.35 (±0.2) x 10^22 Joules per year.

That may be slight, and it may be a short term trend, but it is an indisputable fact that the oceans have gotten cooler over the last 6 years. Papers published before the ARGO array came online showed that from 1993 to 2003 the upper ocean gained 8.1 (±1.4) x 10^22 J of heat, which averages out to 0.81 x 10^22 J warming per year. Jim Hansen and others published a paper (http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2005/2005_Hansen_etal_1.pdf) in 2005 using these results to create a model of ocean heat that predicted that this trend would continue and slightly rise over time. The fact that we have seen a decline in ocean heat over the last 6 years puts those models in serious jeopardy. Although we do not have a long enough trend at this point to discredit the Hansen model, if the heat content of the ocean continues to fall or even be flat for another 6 years, the conclusions of the model must be called into question. Indeed, if the next 6 years of ARGO data look like the last 6, all AGW models will be effectively discredited. This is simply because the oceans contain 4-5 times as much heat as the atmosphere and responds more slowly to change, making it a more accurate proxy for global climate than atmospheric readings.

[joshcryer]

20. Well, I think it would have to 'cool' to pre-90s levels for that to be established.

As it stands now the heat content of the oceans, if you go by the historical record and not one that has only gone on for under a decade, is warming.

http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/10/skeptical-science-global-warming-not-cooling-is-still-happening-ocean-heat-content/

If anything the current 'cooling' trend could be evidence that the ocean is no longer capable of absorbing vast quantities of heat (my theory). Certainly if the trend continues then that would be the only logical conclusion.

[Nederland]

21. Let me approach this a different way

What empirical evidence would you have to see in the next 5-10 years that would make you say that IPCC models have overestimated the degree of warming?

[TxRider]

9. It also doesn't make sense

The the lakes would warm when the atmosphere isn't. Where does the heat come from?

The obvious two places are less evaporation, as evaporation greatly cools water, or more sunlight, as that that greatly heats water. Both have more effect on water temps that air temperature does.


Has sunlight increased on average in those locations? Has humidity on average been higher, making for less evaporation?

[skids]

10. Likely direct heating.

Sunlight entering the water warms it. It then should shed that heat to the air by convection and to space by radiation. I don't think the greenhouse effect would predict that air/water the temperatures would diverge trendwise, but you'd have to ask a scientist on that.

The cause of this weirdness will be interesting to hear -- I'm sure they'll figure it out eventually. Maybe a geothermal input. Maybe something biological keeping the heat trapped in the water or causing it to take more heat in from the sun and reflect less -- e.g. biological blooms. The latter might tie it into climate change, the former would have been inevitable.

[TxRider]

11. Yup

Most heating will be direct solar.

Most cooling is through evaporation. Same reason evaporating sweat cools us down and makes evaporative air conditioners work. Evaporative cooling is limited by surface area and humidity and air temps. First place I would look is average humidity changes for the region.

[NickB79]

19. The oceans are cooling? Huh?

"Ocean Temperatures Are Highest on Record

Average temperatures of waters at the oceans’ surface in July were the highest ever recorded, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. The agency said the average sea surface temperature was 1.06 degrees higher than the 20th-century average of 61.5 degrees. Though July was unusually cool in some areas, like the eastern United States, analysts at the NOAA Climate Data Center said the combined global land and ocean surface temperature was 1.03 degrees higher than the 20th-century average of 60.4 degrees, the fifth warmest since worldwide record keeping began in 1880. The agency also said that, on average, Arctic sea ice covered 3.4 million square miles in July, 12.7 percent below the 1979-2000 average and the third lowest on record, after 2007 and 2006."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/science/earth/15brfs-OCEANTEMPERA_BRF.html

[Nederland]

22. That's surface ocean temperatures

The ARGO array measures temperatures on the first 2000m of the ocean. According to those measurements, the oceans are cooling.

[XemaSab]

4. Of the 6 lakes mentioned

Only one is in the Sierras, and one is right on the border. :P