But the vast majority of the heat is higher, I believe, and you expect the mixed layer and probably a bit below to have constant temperatures.

re: #18 Steve B

nobody working on this (Lyman et al included) thinks a conclusion such as yours is plausible.

Well, first of all, this finding of rapid loss of heat is new, so nobody has had to work on it until now.

Second, not all forcings would be identical concerning how they’d deal with changes in average surface temperature. Thus, for instance, if the cosmic ray theory works out, it operates directly by changing cloud formation and thus direct shades or clears skies and changing temperatures. CO2 would only secondarily change cloud cover as part of the water vapor feedback system.

Finally, I don’t know that it’s a case of my idea leading to lower sensitivity to forcing so much as that a lot of people have wanted to raise the sensitivity for their own purposes. In the discussion of that 55 mya event, for instance, the authors are explicit that the sensitivity must be high because… well because it if isn’t they can’t explain it.

“skin deep’ involves to at least 600 meters down – that was the bottom of their analysis, and they do discuss the possibility of events going deeper. And AFAIK, no one has any idea where that heat went – up or down.

Re #12: Recall that he got his review. I’m sure the NRC Report’s conclusions will be reflected in the AR4.

I was referring more to a paper submission. The term “review” was meant more as reference to Steve’s and Ross’ published works which are, essentially, reviews of others’ works. I was also specifically addressing an “after the deadline” submission. Had they submitted something post-deadline, you would have given birth to a few cows over the matter.

Mark

Re #10: What would the connection be?

#10 =

On a positive side, how about Lyman 2006 (Ocean Heat Content). Might not this paper lead to a challenge of the lower end of CO2 climate sensitivity.

The point is that if it’s easy for the ocean to shed excess heat, presumably via loss to space, then while additional CO2 might raise sst episodically, it would result in a periodic loss of the excess heat. While this could result in some excess of tropical storms, etc., it would ultimately result in reducing the SST compared to what it’d be with a straightforward rising trend.

I think there was a bit of a discussion of this here a while back. Since downwelling ocean water is primarily in circumpolar waters, it is cold. Therefore the ocean depths can’t get very warm, even though there’s a considerable turnover. This means the heat from CO2 increase, as well as from other climate forcings is only “skin deep”. As such, a bit of scrubbing will set the temperature back to where it was, or nearly so.

Presumably you can see why this results in a lower temperature sensitivity to CO2 than otherwise.

Re #10: What would the connection be?

Mark

So the question: your suggestions as to the studies that will be cited in IPCC AR4 that were grandfathered by the July 2006 zoning variance.

I have no idea what specific paper(s) would be included under the amended rules, but I would put a substantial bet on it being on “message”. As a filtering/cherry picking mechanism for providing climate policy from a scientific “consensus”, I would expect no less and am not at all surprised about the apparent last minute rule change — which, by the way, could be rationalized in any number of ways.

Also the need to be totally current (and moving on when hurried errors are exposed) is more in line with what I view as the current state of climatology and not unexpected from the sincere urgency that these people see in getting their message out and policies changed. I do not agree with this approach but I think I understand it.