How is the accumulation of heat energy in the ocean good for us?

The last time the Pacific Decadal Oscillation reinforced global warming was 1998, and we had a spike in heat that was way above the average, higher than any year before it in the global temperature record. Some 15 years later, we are in a cold phase of the PDO and that record-breaking year is now pretty average, just one of the bunch. What happens when the PDO swings back to its atmospheric warming phase? How high do you think *that* spike will get? And how high do you think the average temp will be 15 years after that? How long can the temperature keep ratcheting up like this? After all, the PDO is cyclic, so it shifts between La Nina and El Nino. What will the next several shifts bring?

2013-09-20T07:44:43Z

Apologies, Tomcat, for sloppy writing. I do know the general difference between short-term and longer term variations. I should know better by this point to write things while I'm half-asleep. Let me use the original ending, before it made sense to me to put in that offending 9 word phrase:
"After all, the PDO is cyclic. What will the next several shifts bring?" Now would you take a stab at answering the question? ;)

2013-09-20T09:31:09Z

Exactly, Gryph. If the last go-around gave us the highest temps we've seen in many thousands of years at least, what happens the next time things line up like '98? How high will our atmospheric temps be when that heat starts coming out of the oceans and those El Nino winds start blowing? And how many more times will that happen? I suspect we're going to see more record-hot years in the future, and they will drift down to decadal average in 10 - 20 years. Of course, now I'm answering part of my own question. And I know what I think, usually. ;)

2013-09-23T07:48:00Z

Thanks, Al! Finally a good answer!

Anonymous2013-09-20T11:16:44Z

Favorite Answer

The new Argo Float System will eventually give us a better idea of how our oceans transfer heat energy. I think this was a great step in understanding how our oceans operate.

On the flip side of your question is the total opposite thought : What if the AMO and PDO both go into a "negative" (cooling) phase? It seems that is why we had our recent Arctic Ice build up.

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Sagebrush2013-09-21T13:32:18Z

Grifter: <Where do you DA deniers keep getting all this Earth cooling crap.>

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2002/to:2012/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2002/to:2012/trend

We are getting it from the sources that James Hansen and Phil Jones concocted when the earth was in a real warming trend. You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

<10th warmest year globally in 132 years > I'll go you one better. It is probably one of the warmest years going back to 1650, the bottoming of the Little Ice Age. It is natural and part of the Earth's natural cycle, as we have been saying for a long time. This just shows that the 'saviors of the earth' will cling to anything in their feeble attempt to prove their point.

In direct answer to the question: This aspect of the argument is too new to really properly address it. For one thing, we are discovering new volcanoes beneath the sea surface almost daily. What does that have to do with the ocean heat and position of the heat? How do these affect the currents? Just too many unknowns to be conclusive.

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Kano2013-09-20T23:20:43Z

PDO is negative but AMO is positive, when AMO goes negative it will cool.
I dont have proof and cant even tell how (what mechanism) but El nino's are a response to ocean surface heating and La Nina's respond to cooling, the last 15yrs temperatures have flat lined which is why we have neutral ENSO conditions

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Fg56Jker342013-09-20T17:20:02Z

Here we go again. We have a very limited amount of data regarding the ocean temps.
You've got some serious demonstrating to do if you can demonstrate to me that we have had any ocean warming at all.
You will undoubtably come up with some and selected data that claims some sort of increase at some ocean level with an implied accuracy that is far inside any margin of error a rigorous argument should have.
To think a half degree rise in atmospheric temps has a detectable effect on a body whose thermal mass is 250 times greater is absurd.
Who's the denier now?

35

Tomcat2013-09-20T13:27:33Z

1998 was a strong El-Nino, El-Nino and the PDO phase are two different phenomena, you can still have both El-Nino's and La-Nina's during negative and positive PDO phases. Generally during the PDO warm phase there are more El-Nino's than La-Nina's.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ts.gif

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