Ocean heat content and Earth’s radiation imbalance

Heat can be measured in calories, the SI unit, the joule, or BTU’s. Coastal areas tend to have cooler temps due to water’s high heat capacity, and high specific heat as well. The argument of whether heat is actually energy/kinetic energy or is moved by collisions of molecules–their kinetic energy, is almost moot, beacause, heat can and is stored, as evidenced through General Chemistry experiments in college labs, and Phsyical Chemistry labs as well.
Okay backing up for a minute: energy is the capacity to do work, so under normal circumstances heat does no work, but in nature and in heat engines, heat in fact does work, so heat may be considered energy. Work is done to achieve motion against an opposing force. The Earth is an open system, hence why more energy is added to the system by the sun, and why plenty of energy escapes the system to space as well, however, GHG naturally hold in some heat energy which is then transferred due to temperature diefferences, which also cause pressure differences in the atmosphere, which in turn carries heat and changes regional temperatures which influences a wide variety of weather patterns, and condensation/precipitation processes through cloud formations and other global system processes, and teleconnections. We can place advection and convection here, knoing this post needs to get back on the topic of heat and a little bit more about temperature.
Now, Peter Atkins does discuss heat in terms of q, and as the transfer of energy along with work as well, there is still an energy transfer and it can be stored in various mediums with different levels of heat capacity and specific heat capacity. (extensive/intensive properties) Temperature is an intensive property and is used to define the state of the system and determines the direction in which energy flows as heat.
The energy transferred by heat, is stored, so, getting away from a semantic game, we can see that heat transfers energy which is then stored, and since water takes longer to increase in temperature, there is no need for immediate or high magnitude energy loss after energy has transferred to the water.
In fact, winds over a body of water tends to take on the temperature (average kinetic energy) of the water below.
The randoms entropy, (S) heat loss consists of motion and oscillations in total, while temperature is the averaging out of all motions and oscillations.
Now I refer you guys to a different book by Peter Atkins, “Quanta, Matter and Change: A Molecular Approach to Physical Change.” (Also co-authored by Julio de Paula, Ron Friedman).
On Google Books, beginning on page 324, you can get a more sophisticated understanding of global warming. We see that despite the clear cut definition and explanation of heat made by Atkins, heat can be stored and the resutling temperatures will rise; or if you prefer, heat transfers energy which can be stored that rasies temperature. In a closed system it is as cut and dry and two bodies of varying temperature reaching thermal equilibrium, and in an open one this process exists, but in the latter, open system, many other factors influence heat transfer, temperature differences, and heat capacity as well.
Latitude and the resulting height of sun in relation to the Earth, (the orientation of the Earth to the sun at different latitudes and times of day) the aqauatic life density within the the oceans, and so forth will all influence how much heat transfer will occur and how well the oceans will store such energy, in addition to: thermohaline and deeper depth ocean mixing; fresh water has different properties to consider as well.

vukcevic (02:31:24) :
Your ’junk science’ schemes look like an “earth dynamo”(a few million years and all that water will turn inte helium) 🙂
Seriously, very interesting. The southern magnetic pole it is now going north, so, will this affect el nino/la nina?

“”” Curiousgeorge (11:43:18) :
@ur momisugly George E. Smith (10:28:02) : RE: Sampling theory.
I’ll second that motion. And also offer a fairly decent primer on such things – http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/stathome.html . In the Process Analysis section. “””
Well I took a look at your reference, and it seems like it is more related to statistical mathematics than to sampled data systems.
The most fundamental law, in fact the very foundation of sampled data systems is the Nyquist Sampling Theorem (he was I believe a Bell Labs scientist in communication theory.
The whole concept of sampled data systems is that any well behaved continuous function can be completely represented by a discrete set of samples of that continuous function provided (a) the continuous function is a “band limited fucntion” meaning it contains NO signal information above some band limiting frequency; and (b) provided that the continuous function is sampled at a minimum rate of 2B where B is the band liming frequency. Another way of putting that is that you must take at least one sample during each half cycle of the highest signal frequency contained in the continuous function. The samples don’t have to be uniformly spaced but they cannot be further apart than that minimum spacing; so non uniform sampling requires more samples. As a practical matter it would require saving the sample times accurately in order to facilitate reconstruction of the original continuous function from the samples; if the sampling interval is not uniform.
If you do that; you can theoretically recover the complete continuous function from the set of samples. That would let you accurately calculate the value of the function at some intermediate point that was never actually measured. And having reconstructed the original continuous function in some calculable form, one could then proceed to analyse th function such as by computing the average value over some length of the function.
The problem that arises when you violate those two criteria (a & b), the reconstructed function is in error since it now contains noise signals that are fictitious, and totally unremovable since they are now inside the passband of the function.
For example, if the function is band limited to (B) and you sample at a rate (2B), the presence of an out of band signal say at (B+b), upon sampling will generate false (aliassed) signals at a frequency of (B-b) that are not present in the original signal function. In particlular an out of band signal at a frequency of (B+B), ; twice the intended band limit, results in an aliassed signal at (B-B) or zero frequency; and of course the zero frequency signal is simply the average of the continuous function.
Ergo violation of the Nyquist sampling criterion by just a factor of 2 renders even the average value of the function unrecoverable; it will be contaminated by completely unknown noise. And NO statistical prestidigitation will buy you a reprieve from a Nyquist violation. Don’t look to the central Limit theorem, or any other mathematical device; the error is now in band, and of unknown frequency (in most cases) so you can’t even eliminate it (along with some real signal) by narrow band line filters.
Everybody has seen aliassing noise on his TV set, or movie screen; it is what makes the wagon wheels rotate backwards. The wheel spokes generate a signal component that is above half the frame rate ; (the sampling rate), and the reconstructed movie aliasses the spoke frequency to something fake, and the wheels appear to go backwards.
So that’s why I don’t pay attention to GISStemp; it is not a proper representation of the global mean (surface) temperature

Phil,
if it (the Earth) were a closed system entropy (S) would be far higher than it is now; we would be boiling; but perhaps we can look at the atmosphere, as semipermeable, or a partial interface system, but I assure you that this planet is an open system.

Basil, thanks for drawing my attention to this:
Carvalho, L.M.V.; Tsonis, A.A.; Jones, C.; Rocha, H.R.; & Polito, P.S. (2007). Anti-persistence in the global temperature anomaly field. Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics 14, 723-733.
http://www.uwm.edu/~aatsonis/npg-14-723-2007.pdf
“[…] significant power exists in the 4-7 years band corresponding to ENSO. Such features, however, are broadband features and do not represent periodic signals; they are the result of nonlinear dynamics (e.g., Eccles and Tziperman, 2004). As such they should not be removed from the records.”
This seems consistent with W.W. Hsieh’s observation that post-1950 NH El Nino response has been nonlinear. This gives cause to review carefully the appropriateness of COWL signal removal (cold oceans – warm land).
I tracked this down:
Eccles, F.; & Tziperman, E. (2004). Nonlinear effects on ENSO’s period. Journal of Atmospheric Science 61, 474-482.
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/eli/reprints/Eccles-Tziperman-2004.pdf

Leif Svalgaard (09:31:04) :
Nasif Nahle (09:12:51) :
Show me from any book or Wikipedia, if you would prefer it, that internal energy and total available content of energy are undefined.
Vincent was talking about ‘total energy content’, not your ‘total available energy’. The ‘internal energy’ is also a bit undefined: does it include nuclear binding energy, for instance’. What you mean is ‘thermal energy’ also known as ‘heat’ which is the kinetic energy of the random, disorganized motion of the molecules measured by the temperature of the body. And, of course, ‘thermal energy’ or ‘heat’ is not available to do work. Once an energy form has turned into heat it is no longer ‘available’. To make it do work you need to connect it to another reservoir with a lower temperature and it it this other reservoir and its temperature that determine the amount of work you can get done.
One should add that kinetic energy by itself does no work either in orbits around the sun or in free space motion, or as steam ( until it meets a turbine).

Stephen wilde
>The mechanism by which the bulk ocean temperature is, or rather was, set needs some thought given that there seems to be substantial doubt as to how the current amount of energy in the ocean deeps got there in the first place given that downward mixing encounters significant obstacles. Not least the fact that the direction of energy flow is always ocean to air albeit at varying rates. Indeed the net energy flow is always from the bottom of the oceans to the top of the oceans with the temperature of the Earth’s crust below the oceans being the only thing to set an irreducible minimum at any given time<
can someone explain this:
in the deep ocean trenches 6km down temps are recorded typically -1 deg c to +1 deg c and in some places just below the freezing point of salt water, even in the tropics.
The flow rates may be slow .1 km /hour to .4 km hour but given the size of the currents ie 200 km wide x 20 km deep the capacity to transfer energy is large, but may have to move several thousand km before it upwells there wont be much heat involved though !.
Go down any deep mine temperature rises as you go down, water in the abandoned mine shafts take the temp. of the surounding rock.
The smokers and mid ocean ridges pump out pyroclastic flows containing a lot of energy.
There are some studies which show considerable convection activity between deep ocean water and the seabeds .
The oceans perhaps actually help cool the earth, and don't warm it at all.
The earths core temperatures may be sustained in part by nuclear processes + stored heat from its original formation which is gradually being lost to space.