Trouble for greenhouse skeptics in the latest Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:

Observations show both a pronounced increase in ocean heat content (OHC) over the second half of the 20th century and substantial OHC variability on interannual-to-decadal time scales. Although climate models are able to simulate overall changes in OHC, they are generally thought to underestimate the amplitude of OHC variability. Using simulations of 20th century climate performed with 13 numerical models, we demonstrate that the apparent discrepancy between modeled and observed variability is largely explained by accounting for changes in observational coverage and instrumentation and by including the effects of volcanic eruptions. Our work does not support the recent claim that the 0- to 700-m layer of the global ocean experienced a substantial OHC decrease over the 2003 to 2005 time period. We show that the 2003–2005 cooling is largely an artifact of a systematic change in the observing system, with the deployment of Argo floats reducing a warm bias in the original observing system.

Forecasters predict heavy drinking at TCSDaily and the American Spectator.

The froofaraw stems from a 2006 paper by John Lyman and colleagues in Geophysical Research Letters claiming that sea surface waters grew cooler between 2003 and 2006. Gavin Schmidt noted in April that the authors corrected their paper to account for the probability that a large-scale change in the sampling method could entirely explain the anomalous cooling, and this week’s paper confirms that. In a commentary on the Lyman work linked enthusiastically by rightwing bloggers the skeptic/contrarian researcher Roger Pielke wrote:

If the ocean absorbs most of the heat (which Climate Science agrees with), than that is the climate metric that should be reported on with respect to global warming, rather than the global average surface temperature trend data.

Indeed. Like creationists, greenhouse doubters really need to stay away from testable predictions.