remember, you can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead.
"Why do people call these measurements into question based on their preconceived biases? Why do you not accept these measurements and observations?"
Because I skimmed one of your linked papers! The authors state that some temperature sensor metadata is missing. That is, they do not know exactly what type of sensors they are correcting so the corrections may not be right. Also, they expect the data to change as more of it becomes available. Also, the introduction of the Argo buoys gave a step-change in warming.
The latest figures from Trenberth, allegedly discovering the missing heat, had extensive corrections applied. Models were used as part of the procedure.
They were looking for thousandths of a degree. How big were the corrections? Ten thousandths of a degree? Given the quality of the data and the amount of post-processing required the claims are simply not credible.
Our oceans cover 70% of earths surface and are an average of 3k deep, how can you expect a few thousand argo floats to measure all that, especially as they are talking of hundreds or thousands of a degree C change.
As JZ says the logical way is to measure thermal expansion of the ocean, if the heat content of our oceans rise the sea level will rise also.
Our sea levels are rising but very slowly (6.7 inches in a century) and have been since the last ice age, the rise is linear with no acceleration, which means that there is no new addition to ocean heat, it also tells us that this heat content, is not suddenly going to reverse and warm up our atmosphere, any inflowing or outflowing is going take thousands of years.
"Why do you not accept these measurements and observations?"
Because they're not measurements or observations. They're calculations made with a boat load (pun intended) of estimations BASED on observations. And frankly, the amount and quality of observations changed dramatically in 2003 with the full deployment of ARGO (from being very sparse with large error bars).
It's interesting to note that as soon as ARGO data started being used, the trend seemed to change: http://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/ But hey, that's just a coincidence probably, right?
I'm surprised you keep asking this. If you look at the average global surface temperature, it too is a calculation based on observations. And even lately given the large amount of observations and the modern sensors, we still have four or five major data sets which all differ.
On top of that, the change in ocean heat content over the past few decades is on the order 10x10^22 Joules which when converted to temperature is on the order of 0.05C with yearly changes on the order of 0.001C.
Why do you find it so difficult when someone questions knowing the average heat content of the top two kilometers of the oceans to thousandths of a degree? For the past 50 years??
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Edit: Your links 2-4 don't work.
"Your statement ... pretty much says it all."
It's not the first time in climate science I've seen one type of data spliced onto a different type and head off in a new direction. Just sayin' ... Tell me what other science uses this Frankenstein method.
"Your numbers, as provided by my second link, are also incorrect."
Okay, are you going to keep me guessing?
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Edit2: Actually, I found the Levitus paper on my own: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2012GL051106-pip...
To address the measurements and observations comment, here is what they say straight off: "Our estimates are based on historical data not previously available additional modern data, and bathythermograph data corrected for instrumental biases."
So right away, you have to admit we are dealing with calculations with subjective assumptions (albeit they sound a little more confident now that they have some "new" data). Now, I hope you don't expect me to go outside my knowledge domain and analyze their assumptions because I can't do that. However, within my knowledge is to look critically at this: "The heat content of the World Ocean for the 0-2000 m layer increased by 24.0±1.9x10^22J...."
That's a warming of 0.09C since 1955. That error margin in miniscule. Okay, I see now that my number for yearly average magnitude change is closer to 5 thousandths of a degree. I was off by a fact of five. But I believe my criticism was only off by a factor of 0.005.
Again, what part of this are you not getting?
I have been aware the ocean has been warming for decades (both my awareness and the ocean warming has been decades). This resulted in thermal expansion which increased sea levels far more than the melting glaciers that we're supposed to be so afraid of. Are you assuming that no one realized the ocean was warming before? What we are skeptical of is alarmists conveniently pretending they can excuse their failed models by suddenly finding the missing heat in the ocean.
JZ does raise a valid point; "Are you assuming that no one realized the ocean was warming before?"
I often respond to "sceptics" who talk as if the Sun, volcanoes and carbon dioxide's biological role has not been considered by climatolgists, by saying that climatologists have already considered such things.
It is a common argument among climate contrarians that in order for the heat to get to the deep oceans it would need to bypass the argo floats. If we look at the following page we see a rather large jump in 0-700m ocean heat content just before 2005.
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
This is taken from Levitus et al, 2012
ftp://kakapo.ucsd.edu/pub/sio_220/e03%20-%20Global%20warming/Levitus_et_al.GRL12.pdf
in a 2009 paper this same group wrote an article reworking the 2055-2008 ocean heat content in light of recently revealed instrumental problems.
ftp://140.90.235.80/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat08.pdf
On top of that there have been measurements of heat content even further down. The following paper deals with deep ocean or that below 3000m.
ftp://soest.hawaii.edu/coastal/Climate%20Articles/Ocean%20warming%20DEEP%20Kouketsu%202011.pdf
Why do people call these measurements into question based on their preconceived biases? Why do you not accept these measurements and observations?
Also, if you have any other papers on ocean heat content I'd liek to see them.
