Variations of the Earths Energy Budget are driving Increases of Ocean Water Levels and Temperatures

Ulrich Wolff Mrz 2013 Abstract The increase of ocean water levels started 15000 years ago. Observation confirms that this trend is still continuing thus indicating that the energy budget of the earth is positive since that time. This finding is contradictory to a postulated balanced annual global energy budget being the foundation of mathematical models used to claim an influence of so called atmospheric green house gases on temperatures. On the contrary the increase of ocean water levels as observed between 1904 2007 allows quantifying an average imbalance of the earths energy Budget equaling +0,52 W/m2 during the years 1904 2007 thus causing an increase of average temperatures in ocean waters by +0,74 K. In addition recent findings concerning cloud emergence underline its influence on temperatures in crust and atmosphere including natural fluctuations observed,.

The energy flux into crust and atmosphere of the earth emerges from interaction of its matter with radiation and matter out of space penetrating the earth together with a small contribution from radioactive decay and stored heat (1). It is the absorption and storage of solar radiation preventing surface temperatures from reducing to about 32 K (-240 ). The outgoing energy flux into space emerges continuously from surfaces of solid and liquid matter facing space in form of heat radiation completed with a contribution of radiation, which is being discontinuously emitted from atoms and molecules of some atmospheric gases following excitation. Therefore the variation of the enthalpy of crust and atmosphere depends on its energy budget, its changes with time including changes of state of matter all together controlling weather and its statistics climate. An attempt of a mathematical treatment of this open system faces a rather complex initial value problem. Changes of state within the atmosphere and crust are nonlinear and in the long-term even chaotic-stochastic. A solution of the problem can be achieved neither by measurement nor by calculation. As a consequence thereof the weather forecast is based on observation combined with the use of mathematical models, both attempting to recognize and describe the short term deterministic component of changes. Since several decades this approach is generating a forecast up to about a week. A different approach is being applied by another section of Climate Science based on postulating the possibility to produce a long term forecast of variations of a global

2 climate by using models utilizing grossly simplified mathematical tools. These simplifications include treating the open system earth as a closed system by postulating the existence of a balanced earths energy budget at the upper boundary of the atmosphere during respective time spans considered. This assumption reduces the mathematical challenge drastically. The time dependent initial value problem is being replaced by a boundary value problem only. An earths energy budget resulting is being presented in (2). Based on calculations using such mathematical models it is being claimed, that the increase of the CO2 concentration within the atmosphere following industrialization did cause an increase of the average global surface temperature by about 0.7 K during the past 100 - 150 years already. A further rise of surface temperatures is being predicted to reach several K assumed to be caused by a continuing increase of the CO2 concentration within the atmosphere (3). These considerations are put into question in toto based on the increase of the global ocean water levels beginning at the end of the last ice age phase 15000 years ago and still continuing. The global ocean water level must rise following an energy flux into the crust causing melting of ice not floating and/or increasing the water temperatures. An increase of water level as being observed can have other causes also like tectonic effects as being verified regionally. However there are no indications that influences of such nature might have contributed significantly to the increase observed during the time span considered here: During the past 15000 years following the end of the last ice age phase the global ocean water level rose according to (4) and (5) by about 140 m. That is an average increase of about 10 mm/year. An increase of the ocean water level by 1 mm/m2 caused by melting of ice (not floating) requires an energy input of at least 0.278 kWh, if melting occurs at constant temperature. Therefore 38,9 MWh/m2 of Ocean surface would melt a quantity of ice to raise the ocean water levels by 140 m. This amount of energy equals 18 times the average yearly input of solar energy into 1 m 2 of the ocean surfaces. Starting from zero the rate of level increase reached 12.5 mm/year before 9000 to 5000 years, reduced to 1.4 mm/year thereafter and to 1.1 mm/year during the last 3000 years. The yearly values are varying around the general trend, which is still active. Evidently the transition from ice age into the present warm period has not yet been completed: Using data from 23 locations (4), (5) the average increase equaled 1.91 0.14 mm/year between 1904 and 1953, reducing to 1.42 0.14 mm/year thereafter during the period between 1954 and 2007. Ice melting took place on less than 10% of the earths surface only. The total quantity of water released into the oceans at this surface fraction equaled 1,69 t/m2 requiring an energy input of 469 kWh/m2. It is highly probable that in parallel 469 kWh/m2 had been absorbed in the ocean waters covering 71 % of the earths surface. An average imbalance of the earths energy budget of +0.52 W/m2 over 103 years accumulates to a total equaling 469 kWh/m 2. Based on an average ocean depth of 3900 m this energy input lets the average water

3 temperature within the volume and at the oceans surfaces increase by +0.74 K. Evidently 15000 years ago the earths energy budget became positive. Either the energy input had increased or the energy flux into space had reduced. The latter possibility must be excluded because of the temperatures increase in crust and atmosphere being observed during that time span. Therefore the fraction of incoming solar radiation being reflected into space gets into focus: In (2) this fraction is being quoted to equal 30 % of the incoming solar energy flux of which 2/3 rd are quoted to be caused by clouds. The mechanism of diversion into space, being caused by water droplets and ice crystals mainly, is well understood within the laws of geometrical optics. Also well known is that initiation of condensation and sublimation of water within the atmosphere requires the presence and the replacement of such kernels. Therefore the hypothesis of Svensmark pointing to the sources of varying import of such condensation kernels from space proposes a convincing explanation of the observations presented and discussed above (6), (7). Conclusion: The transition from the last ice age into the present warm period driven by a decreasing positive imbalance of the earths energy budget is still continuing. From 1904 - 2007 total increases of an average ocean water level ( 168 mm) and average temperature ( +0.74K) correlate with an average imbalance of the earths energy budget ( +0,52 W/m2) during that time period not leaving room for any contribution from an increasing CO2 concentration within the atmosphere.

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(2) (3)

(4) Anthropogener Meeresspiegelanstieg Vom Konstrukt zur Panik?, Klaus-Eckart Puls, Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau, 61. Jahrgang, Heft 12, 2008, S.566-574. (5) A new Holocene sea level curve for the southern North Sea, Karl-Ernst Behre, (2007) Boreas, Vol. 36, p. 82-102, Oslo, ISSN 300 9483.

4 (6) (7) Cosmoclimatology: a new theory emerges, Henrik Svensmark, 2007, Astronomy&Geophysics (Backwell Publishing) 48(1): 18-24. ISSN 1366-8781. Aerosol nucleation induced by a high energy particle beam, Martin B. Enghoff, Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen, Ulrik I. Uggerhj, Sean M. Paling, Henrik Svensmark, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 38, L09805, 4PP, 2011 ,doi:10.1029/2011GL047036