Net ocean heat content changes are very closely tied to the net
radiative imbalance of the planet since the ocean component of
the climate system has by far the biggest heat capacity. Thus we
have often made the point that diagnosing this imbalance through
measurements of temperature in the ocean is a key metric in
evaluating the response of the system to changes in CO2 and the
other radiative forcings (see here). In a paper I co-authored
last year (Hansen et al, 2005), we compared model results with
the trends over the 1993 to 2003 period and showed that they
matched quite well (here). Given their importance in evaluating
climate models, new reports on the ocean heat content numbers
are anticipated quite closely. Recently, a new preprint with the
latest observations (2003 to 2005) has appeared (Lyman et al,
hat tip to Climate Science) which shows a decrease in the ocean
heat content over those two years, decreasing the magnitude of
the long-term trend that had been shown from 1993 to 2003 in
previous work (W