Earth's energy imbalance and heat absorption by oceans
John Nissen
Michael MacCracken
Hi John--A quick initial response.
When IPCC is talking about forcing, you need to remember that this is at the tropopause, not at the surface.
If you go way back to a fundamental paper in Science by Jim Hansen from 1981 (copy attached), Figure 4 shows that, at equilibrium for a CO2 doubling (you can scale down from that situation), the fluxes at the surface are several times larger than the flux levels at the tropopause--a result of how greenhouse gas effect amplifies things. In the question you pose below, you seem to not account for the different locations (surface and tropopause).
Best, Mike MacCracken
Gene Fry
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Healthy Planet Action Coalition (HPAC)" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to healthy-planet-action...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/CACS_FxqfS5UFQvns5mxKSE-1NY1E6ew%3DucKrK0GKgkPc5MpA%3DQ%40mail.gmail.com.
robert...@gmail.com
Hi Gene
I believe it is somewhat misleading to claim that albedo forcing was 2.2 times the GHG forcing. The albedo forcing is almost entirely a feedback caused by the warming caused by GHGs. To present it as you do implies that the albedo forcing is in addition to the GHG forcing. This is mostly not so. While at any instant in time this may be true, the forcing stated for GHGs is typically assessed over their atmospheric lifetimes and includes the forcing arising from the feedbacks they trigger. The albedo effects we're now seeing are mostly the emergence of the so-called 'warming in the pipeline'. These albedo impacts should not be regarded as a new source of warming. They are warming, but IMO inspired reductions in aerosols apart, they're largely the expected warming manifesting on schedule.
Robert
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/9E4D286C-66A9-4F3A-8F2A-672E2657E297%40rcn.com.
Oeste
Robert
The decreasing albedo heats ocean and climate as well as the increasing greenhouse gas concentration. The decreasing health of the marine photic zone life depends on the increasing surface layer stratification by warming and the acidification by increasing CO2 level, decreasing phytoplankton photosynthesis activity, sulfuric acid generation and toxification by ship fluegas. Most of these effects, but not all, originate from the increasing greenhouse gas concentration. But they all do their part to the increasing climate warming.
Next to the ocean also continental wildfires, disappearance of virgin forests, moors, swamps, seaweed fields and mangrove forests on their shore lines plus multiple industrial pollutant and greenhouse-active emissions do also their part in increasing direct or indirect the climate temperature.
What counts are the influences of all these facts on the climate warming increase but for me it seems a value of second order to find out the origin of each of these points.
The IMO's decision showed the importance of the cloud albedo but it induced next to the cloud cover decrease over the ocean an increase of the photic zone pollution and intoxification of the photic zone layer by the scrubber residues from the marine traffic.
Franz
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/a1a5271f-fb66-4140-aca1-c534f503c7b1%40gmail.com.
Gene Fry
Hi Gene
I believe it is somewhat misleading to claim that albedo forcing was 2.2 times the GHG forcing. The albedo forcing is almost entirely a feedback caused by the warming caused by GHGs. To present it as you do implies that the albedo forcing is in addition to the GHG forcing. This is mostly not so. While at any instant in time this may be true, the forcing stated for GHGs is typically assessed over their atmospheric lifetimes and includes the forcing arising from the feedbacks they trigger. The albedo effects we're now seeing are mostly the emergence of the so-called 'warming in the pipeline'. These albedo impacts should not be regarded as a new source of warming. They are warming, but IMO inspired reductions in aerosols apart, they're largely the expected warming manifesting on schedule.
Robert
John et al.,
You calculate growth in ocean heat content of 0.6 W/m^2 over 2000-2020.From NOAA data over a slightly more recent time interval, 2006-2024, I calculated 0.68 W/^2,from 11 ZJ heat dded per year to the oceans.
<Ocean Heat Content thru 1225, Annotated.png>There has probably been a modest acceleration.
More important,from 2000-2025, the added radiative forcing from albedo loss was 2.2 times that the added forcing from greenhouse gases: 2.19 W/m^2 from albedo loss vs 1.00 W/m^2 from added GHGs.
<Screenshot 2026-02-02 at 9.03.21 AM.png>
<Screenshot 2026-02-02 at 9.04.03 AM.png>
--This suggests that the difference between 12 W/m^2 and 4 W/m^2 is due to albedo loss.
Gene Fry
On Feb 1, 2026, at 3:51 PM, John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Peter and Mike,
The oceans are often said to absorb a large proportion of the heat from climate forcing. I have seen estimates up to 97%. When I looked into the actual heat absorption, I always found it was measured in energy units (e.g. ZJ or zettajoules) per year rather than power units (e.g. petawatts). The EEI measurements are in power units. So I tried a conversion for this source [1]. In the Gantt diagram* they show 200 ZJ for ocean absorption "anomaly" in 2020, relative to a baseline zero around 2000; i.e. the absorption had grown by around 200 ZJ per year in 20 years. This 200 ZJ peer year translates into 6.34 petawatts. This corresponds to about 12 W/m2 over the whole planet, whose surface area is 510 million km2. But forcing from GHGs is far less than this; estimates are sometimes around 4 W/m2, but nowhere near 12 W/m2. And there's no way that the forcing had grown as much as this over 20 years. It seems that there's something very wrong in measurements of ocean absorption. Or I have just stumbled on some naff science pretending to be authoritative?
BTW, their estimate of an annual growth of ~5 ZJ per year is much less than the annual growth of ~7.5 ZJ per year (300ZJ growth, 1980 to 2020) shown in the diagram.
Best wishes, John
*Source Cheng et al. 2020
[1] Mulhern (Earth.Org, 2021)The Ocean Absorbed 20 Sextillion Joules of Heat in 2020
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Healthy Planet Action Coalition (HPAC)" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to healthy-planet-action...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/CACS_FxqfS5UFQvns5mxKSE-1NY1E6ew%3DucKrK0GKgkPc5MpA%3DQ%40mail.gmail.com.
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Healthy Planet Action Coalition (HPAC)" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to healthy-planet-action...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/9E4D286C-66A9-4F3A-8F2A-672E2657E297%40rcn.com.
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Healthy Planet Action Coalition (HPAC)" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to healthy-planet-action...@googlegroups.com.
Robert Chris
So, Gene, what policy implications flow from this, and in particular, how does the distinction between direct GHG forcing and indirect albedo feedback forcing impact the range of available policy options?
Robert
Gene Fry
John Nissen
John Nissen
Douglas Grandt
If you go way back to a fundamental paper in Science by Jim Hansen from 1981 (copy attached), Figure 4 shows that …
On Feb 2, 2026, at 1:05 PM, John Nissen <johnnis...@gmail.com> wrote:
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Healthy Planet Action Coalition (HPAC)" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to healthy-planet-action...@googlegroups.com.
Michael MacCracken
Hi Gene--Nice to see the updated analysis, but it is incorrect to say that the difference is due to albedo loss. The difference is likely mainly due to the greenhouse effect creating larger flux numbers than the forcing number that are referenced to the tropopause, as Indicated in a note that I sent to John et al.
Mike
Michael MacCracken
Per my note, sent a bit after this, the comparison being made is apples and oranges, or perhaps say oranges and plums. It is just improper to be doing as the ocean measurement is being made below most of the greenhouse effect and the forcing term is at the tropopause and so above it. So, cancel out this whole idea of distinguishing a sense of the albedo effect in this way.
So, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.
Mike
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/FE1F16FF-CC44-46B5-9303-4DF30CCF3AEF%40rcn.com.
Michael MacCracken
HI JOHN, GENE (AND ROBERT C)--YOUR COMMENT IS ONLY A SMALL PART OF THE PROBLEM WITH THE COMPARISON, IF AT ALL. THE OCEAN HEAT UPTAKE IS BASED ON ENERGY FLUXES THAT ARE OCCURRING BELOW THE GREENHOUSE GAS EFFECT THAT AMPLIFIES THE AMOUNT OF DOWNWARD FLUX TO THE SURFACE AND THE FORCING FLUX IS ABOVE THE GHG EFFECT.
LOOK AT AN ENERGY BALANCE DIAGRAM FOR THE EARTH. ONLY 50% OF INCOMING SOLAR MAKES IT TO THE SURFACE; WHAT REALLY KEEPS THE EARTH WARM IS THAT THE DOWNWARD IR IS MORE THAN TWICE AS LARGE AS THE SOLAR THAT REACHES THE SURFACE, THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT BEING THE CAUSE OF SO MUCH HEAT AVAILABLE AT THE SURFACE.
MIKE
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Planetary Restoration" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to planetary-restor...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/planetary-restoration/CACS_FxrohmVNTuZAVNF%2Bu2Fqo%2BH0PV1HvBgT4h5M8o2hJbANEQ%40mail.gmail.com.
Michael MacCracken
Hi John--It may have been downloaded quite a while ago. Here is a version downloaded from Science magazine today.
Mike
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Planetary Restoration" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to planetary-restor...@googlegroups.com.
Robert Chris
Hi Gene et al
Quite apart from Mike's comments about the science, I think there are equally strong reasons to object to your approach from the perspective of policymaking.
This is essentially a binary reductionist view: warming caused by albedo reduction must be countered by albedo increase. Why?
The parallel argument is that warming caused by increased GHGs must be countered by reducing GHGs.
Both these positions are incoherent. The correct approach to counter warming is to reduce the influences causing warming by whatever methods are most feasible, irrespective of the precise source of the warming.
There are only two options - increase albedo and/or reduce atmospheric GHGs. There are many ways of doing both of these; the specific methods are not relevant here.
The attraction of SRM is that it that it is radiatively more efficient than reducing GHGs i.e. you get more rapid cooling output for less resource input from SRM than from reducing GHGs. If time is of the essence, then SRM is necessary. If time is not important, then reducing GHGs would also work. What caused the warming in the first place is irrelevant.
In addition to the SRM, it's also prudent to reduce GHG emissions because having such low radiative efficiency and long atmospheric residence time, it is even more important to stop adding them to the atmosphere sooner rather than later, even recognising that in the short term, doing so will have little temperature impact.
More controversial is my view that the logical extension of this argument is that CDR only makes sense in niche low hanging fruit situations. Much better to devote the resources that would be invested in CDR, to retiring fossil fuels and SRM, in whatever combination seems most appropriate.
Robert
rob...@rtulip.net
This discussion on the relationship between albedo and carbon is something I have looked into.
It is possible to distinguish the direct greenhouse forcing caused by emissions from wider feedbacks.
CO2 emissions now add 0.036 watts per square metre of direct radiative forcing per year, as the greenhouse effect of new emissions, not including feedbacks and other GHG forcings.
By comparison, CERES data shows the darkening of the planet from loss of albedo has seen planetary reflectivity decline by 2.1 watts per square metre since 2003, about 0.1 w/m2/y.
On that basis, albedo loss is causing nearly three times as much warming as the greenhouse effect from new CO2 emissions (0.036 x 3 = 0.108).
And as I recently reported here, the rate of albedo loss has more than doubled each decade in this millennium, so the albedo/carbon warming ratio is worsening.
This all has to be integrated to calculate the net effect, given that warming also causes an increase in thermal longwave radiation to space, as reported by Loeb et al.
The bottom line as I understand it is that in the short term, cutting emissions only cuts the growth of the greenhouse effect, not the growth of feedbacks, given that feedbacks are almost entirely a product of past emissions.
The loss of clouds and ice are primary albedo feedbacks that cannot be mitigated by cutting emissions. That means failure to fix albedo is a recipe for system collapse. But the system can be saved by restoring albedo while working out how to remove GHGs at scale.
This is why in the short term it is essential to substitute albedo for carbon as the main climate priority, recognising that the albedo emergency may be akin to an avalanche starting to move.
Regards
Robert Tulip
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/67b8d778-69cd-4f0a-8e2c-a2c5d00d2455%40gmail.com.