Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
It has been known for some time that the “Pacific Warm Pool”, the area just northeast of Australia, has a maximum temperature. It never gets much warmer than around 30 – 31°C. This has been borne out by the Argo floats. I discussed this in passing in “Jason and the Argo Notes“, and “Argo Notes Part 2“. I’d like to expand on this a bit. Let me be clear that I am by no means the originator of the claim that there is a thermostat regulating the maximum ocean temperature. See among many others the Central Equatorial Pacific Experiment. I am merely looking at the Argo data with this thermostat in mind.
First, Figure 1 shows the distribution of all of the ~ 700,000 surface temperature measurements taken by Argo floats to date.
Figure 1. A “histogram” shows how many data points fall in each of the 1°C intervals shown along the bottom axis. The maximum is in the interval 28°-29°C.
The number of temperature records peaks around 29°C, and drops quickly for temperatures above 30°C. This clearly establishes the existence of the mechanism limiting the oceanic temperatures.
What else can the Argo data tell us about this phenomenon? Quite a bit, as it turns out.
First, a look at the year by year evolution of the limit, and how it affects the temperatures at different latitudes.
Figure 2. Annual temperature variations measured by all northern hemisphere argo floats that exceeded 30°C. Temperature observations are colored by latitude. Click on image for full-sized graphic.
A couple points of interest. First, the cap clearly affects only the warm parts of the year. Close to the equator, that is most of the year. The further from the equator, the less of the annual cycle is affected.
Second, the majority of the breakthroughs through the ~30° ceiling that do occur are from areas further from the equator, and are short-lived. By and large, nobody exceeds the speed limit, especially those along the equator.
Figure 3 is a closeup of the years since 2005. I chose this starting point because prior to that the numbers are still changing due to limited coverage. To show how the mechanism is cropping the tops of the warmer parts of the year, I have added a Gaussian average (129 point width) in dark gray for each two-degree latitudinal band from 0°-2°N up to 10°-12°N.
Figure 3. Annual temperature variations measured by all northern hemisphere argo floats that exceeded 30°C. Dark lines have been added to highlight the average annual swings of the data by latitude band. Click on image for full-sized graphic.
As you can see, the warm parts of the yearly cycle have their high points cropped off flat, with the amount cropped increasing with increasing average temperatures.
Finally, here is the corresponding plot for the southern hemisphere:
Figure 4. Annual temperature variations measured by all southern hemisphere argo floats that exceeded 30°C. Click on image for full-sized graphic.
Note that there is less of the southern ocean that reaches 30°C, and it is restricted to areas closer to the equator.
Next, where are these areas that are affected by the temperature cap? I had always thought from the descriptions I’d read that the limitation on ocean temperature was only visible in the “Pacific Warm Pool” to the northeast of Australia. Figure 5 shows the areas which have at some point been over 30°C.
Figure 5. Locations in the ocean which are recorded at some time as having reached or exceeded 30°C.
Figure 5a. A commenter requested a Pacific-centered view of the data. We are nothing if not a full-service website.
Clearly this mechanism operates in a wider variety of oceans and seas than I had realized, not just in the Pacific Warm Pool.
Finally, here is another way to consider the effect of the temperature maximum. Here are the average annual temperature changes by latitude band. I have chosen to look at the northern hemisphere area from 160 to 180 East and from the Equator to 45°N (upper right of Figure 5, outlined in cyan), as it has areas that do and do not reach the ~ 30° maximum.
Figure 6. Average annual temperature swings by latitude band. Two years (the average year , shown twice) are shown for clarity.
Note that at say 40°N, we see the kind of peaked summer high temperatures that we would expect from a T^4 radiation loss plus a T^2 or more evaporative loss. It’s hard to get something warm, and when the heat is turned down it cools off fast. This is why the summer high temperature comes to a point, while the winter low is rounded.
But as the temperature starts to rise towards the ocean maximum, you can see how that sharp peak visible at 40°N starts first to round over, then to flatten out at the top. Curiously, the effect is visible even when the temperatures are well below the maximum ocean temperature.
Speculations on the mechanism
I want to highlight something very important that is often overlooked in discussions of this thermostatic mechanism. It is regulated by temperature, and not by forcing. It is insensitive to excess incoming radiation, whether from CO2 or from the sun. During the part of the year when the incoming radiation would be enough to increase the temperature over ~ 30°, the temperature simply stops rising at 30°. It is no longer a function of the forcing.
This is very important because of the oft-repeated AGW claim that surface temperature is a linear function of forcing, and that when forcing increases (say from CO2) the temperature also has to increase. The ocean proves that this is not true. There is a hard limit on ocean temperature that just doesn’t get exceeded no matter how much the sun shines.
As to the mechanism, to me that is a simple question of the crossing lines. As temperature rises, clouds and thunderstorms increase. This cuts down the incoming energy, as well as cooling the surface in a variety of ways. Next, this same process moves an increasing amount of excess energy polewards. In addition, as temperature rises, parasitic losses (latent and sensible energy transfers from the surface to the atmosphere) also go up.
So … as the amount of total radiation (solar + greenhouse) that is warming any location rises, more and more of the incoming solar radiation is reflected, there are more and more parasitic losses, more cold water and air move from aloft to the surface as cold wind and rain, and a greater and greater percentage of the incoming energy is simply exported out of the area. At some point, those curves have to cross. At some point, losses have to match gains.
When they do cross, all extra incoming energy above that point is simply transferred to the upper atmosphere and thence to the poles. About 30°C is where the curves cross, it is as hot as this particular natural system can get, given the physics of wind, water, and wave.
I make no overarching claims for this mechanism. It is just one more part of the many interlocking threshold-based thermostatic mechanisms that operate at all temporal and spatial scales, from minutes to millennia and kilometres to planet-wide. The mechanisms include things like the decadal oscillations (PDO, AMO, etc), the several-year Nino/Nina swings, the seasonally opposing effects of clouds (warming the winters and cooling the summers), and the hourly changes in clouds and thunderstorms.
All of these work together to maintain the earth within a fairly narrow temperature band, with a temperature drift on the order of ± 0.2% per century. It is the stability of the earth’s climate system which is impressive, not the slight rise over the last century. Until we understand the reasons for the amazing planetary temperature stability, we have no hope of understanding the slight variations in that stability.
My regards to you all,
w.
UPDATE (by Anthony):
Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. has some praise for this essay here:
Joules Verne says:
February 13, 2012 at 4:45 pm
I don’t see how that has anything to do with anything that I wrote.
And what about the downwelling areas? As the majority of the energy going into the global ocean is through downwelling, it would seem that any discussion of ocean surface tempertures can’t really be complete without a discussion of downwelling of that surface energy into the much deeper layers of the ocean. This is major part of the recharge cycle of ENSO, as all that downwelling warmer water in the western Pacific, in areas such as the Mindanao dome, is the “battery” that is charged during La Nina, to be released during El Niño. Problem is, it seems the battery is not being fully discharged, and some of the excess is spilling into other ocean basins, and thus, total ocean heat content is going up.
Willis,
I am well aware of that set of observations and the numerous limitations of the study. At the time of your post on “radiating the oceans” I search extensively for a study conducted in controlled lab conditions. I could not find one and none of the supporters for DWLWIR altering the cooling rate of the oceans could point to one. Only those ship based observations. I ended up conducting my own experiment . I find it fascinating the that given this is such an important issue relating to the effects of CO2 that there are not results for numerous lab experiments into this issue spread wide across the web.
Do you know of any lab experiments into this issue using controlled LWIR sources, controlled sample sizes, sample temperatures as well as air speed and humidity?
Willis asks “The main question for you “can’t be absorbed” folks to answer, and the one you simply can’t answer is this: if DWLWIR is not absorbed by the ocean … where is the other 390 W/m2 coming from to keep the ocean from freezing?”
The answer is “from the atmosphere”. The subtle distinction is what is meant by “absorbed”. It IS absorbed but only by the top few molecules of the ocean.Its not something that *directly* heats the ocean. At no time does any of the stated energy of the DLR make it into the bulk of the ocean.
In fact IMO when considering ocean heating it doesn’t heat the ocean at all. And It serves me best to think of it as a slowing of cooling. But thats just me.
Willies writes about the Minnett experiment “They found the ocean does in fact absorb DLR. Hard evidence.”
No they didn’t Willis. They absolutely didn’t find hard evidence. You should know better.
Joules Verne says
No one will hire me as a carpenter, Willis, and no one is going to hire you as a scientiest. I think we both know that but one of us won’t admit it.
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Joules, It doesn’t matter that much if Willis is a professional scientist or not. It’s all down to whether he can make original observations and avoid the many traps of mistake and self- delusion in performing the analysis.
There is a long tradition of amateur science and I am happy to see that tradition continue.
Konrad says
However I do trust empirical results. LWIR has a very limited effect on water that is free to evaporatively cool. If you restrict the evaporative cooling of two warm water samples allowing only conductive and radiative cooling and expose the surface of one sample to LWIR you will notice a distinct divergence in the rate of cooling between the samples. When evaporative cooling is allowed, both samples cool faster yet there is no divergence in their temperatures.
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I keep on banging on about the need for people to do simple experiments like this. Looks like Konrad has done it. So Konrad is there a way for this to be explained in more detail with photos and graphs and such? A WUWT article perhaps if it’s not already out there.
“those who argue about LW radiation not being able to warm water deeper than the top surface fail to understand the powerful downwelling that occurs at areas such as the Mindanao Dome, taking down large amounts of warm equatorial water from the surface to deeper layers of the ocean.”
That energy is from direct solar input up to 200 metres deep. Nothing to do with IR hitting surface molecules to cause more evaporation.
LazyTeenager,
The experiment was designed to be repeatable by others and a materials list, construction instructions, operation instructions and observed results were hosted by Rog at the Talkshop after the experiment was mentioned here in Willis’ “radiating the oceans thread”.
I greatly appreciate the effort that Anthony has put into WUWT and all that he and his moderators have achieved. I took the time to see him talk when he made an international visit to my city. However I do not believe WUWT is the appropriate forum for empirical experiments into these issues during the “reign of Willis”.
Initial experiments as hosted at the Talkshop were based on reflecting LWIR emitted by the water samples back onto the samples (like the real ocean and CO2). However later variants used a constant LWIR source over one sample and a sheet of matt black aluminium cooled to -5C over the other. Given that this required peltier chips, water blocks and water pumps I have not added this to the initial instructions as this is not easily replicated by others.
While I know you lean toward the CAGW side of things, I would urge you to consider why it is that there are no published lab experiments into this issue. You should not take my word for it, you should design and construct your own experiment. Even lazy teenagers can shrink a coke bottle with a lighter or cut hose pipe to length 😉
DocMartyn says: February 13, 2012 at 5:07 pm “surfactants lower the evaporation rate of water, so would increase temperature.”
I don’t know that part b follows from part a, because surfactants could increase the ability of water to absorb heat at some incident wavelengths, depending on the particular surfactant.
That aside, yours is a notworthy comment because it could be quantitatively important; because one could imagine some biota excreting surfactants, with implications for feedbacks; because it seems under-researched in the literature; and because it’s another example that the science is “NOT SETTLED”.
Just about every topic on WUWT reveals a sub-set of issues that could often be solved with simple experiments. The comparative absence of such simple tests could be due to my incomplete reading, or due to a rush to publish findings that fail to incorporate further, plausible variables.
steven mosher says: February 13, 2012 at 10:19 am “you know willis. there might have been some speck of wisdom in my suggestion ( christmas 2010) that WUWT should avoid posting junk science”.
Steven, I don’t need to lecture you or Willis on some dangers lurkingg here. For example, Here is a letter I wrote to the President of the Australian Acadamy of Science, with no useful response.(I’ve made some non-relevant deletions). START.
25 April 2011.The President, Australian Academy of Science,
Dear Professor Cory, re: Evaluation of Emergent Science.
In about 1993, I became interested in the use of temperatures used to make a case for Global Warming and later corresponded with Professor P Jones of University of East Anglia, before his name was so prominent in the field. This was an aside from my normal work, but it caused me to look deeper into the topic of how to handle emergent science, as was the work of Professor Jones then. I examined some of it and found it to be incorrect, not by opinion, but by hard numbers.
I had, since the early 1970s, worked closely with John Elliston AM, a geologist, and Professor S. Warren Carey, who was a motivator of the plate tectonic theory. By now it is fair to deduce that Carey and Elliston were then likely to be more correct with their science about this topic than those I shall call “The Establishment” in a neutral, shorthand way.
The AAS had an acrimonious relationship with Professor Carey, see science.org.au/fellows/memoirs/carey
In hindsight, one can name several Australian examples where emerging science clashed with the Establishment view, an outcome that is not unexpected. See, for example, the struggles of Nobel Laureates Warren and Marshall at http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2005/warren-lecture.html
A less resolved matter is the toxicity of lead in children, with research by old friends Dr Allen Christophers and Pamela de Silva. http://dnacih.com/SILVA.htm
Here are some international examples showing difficulties for emergent science: Hans Krebs’s description of the citric acid cycle, which won him the Nobel prize, Solomon Berson’s discovery of radioimmunoassay, which led to a Nobel prize, and Bruce Glick’s identification of B lymphocytes.
The growth of the web log on the Internet and its impact on the older peer review process is the subject of much current discussion. It would seem by now to be scientifically imprudent to rely on the publication/peer review process as the main indicator of quality; high quality blogs are making a niche.
These examples indicate that there is interest in the early identification and proper treatment of emergent science. I wish to put this in context with the AAS publication “The Science of Climate Change” of August 2010 at http://www.science.org.au/reports/climatechange2010.pdf
By late 2010, the “Establishment” view of climate science that was reproduced by the AAS was undergoing critical examination by many scientists whose findings were often at odds with the Establishment view. This emergent science was in easy view, but it was given scarce a mention by the AAS.
The AAS publication can be regarded as setting the stage for yet another suppression of emergent science. The purpose of this letter is simple. It asks whether the AAS has a series of checks and balances that are used to assess emergent science; what they are; and whether they were used prior to issue of the 2010 report “The Science of Climate Change”. END.
My physics teachers taught us to collect the data ahead of theory. But that was a different era, before liberal arts majors started teaching physics. Now the norm is to:
1) identify an area of study for which grants are available.
2) identify a theory likely to attract a grant
3) attract the grant
4) identify data that supports the theory sufficient to get published and justify further grants.
5) repeat from step 1.
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Fred it seems you did not actually listen to your physics teacher. Because you collected absolutely no data before concocting your theory about the “norm” of behavior for researchers.
As for teaching students how physics is done. Obviously everything is simplified when teaching students.
Guys
As usual articles posted by Willis generate interesting comments. This one, is no exception and the discussion regarding the role of DWLWIR is very interesting and indeed relevant to Willis’s observation that generally, the tropical ocean does not get above 30degC and his comment that “…there is plenty of energy from the sun to make many ocean areas reach over 30°C…”
As often is the case in climate science, issues are often placed arse about face and without any physical hypothesis put forward explaining the workings of the phenomena under discussion. The DWLWIR assertion is typical in this regard.
The starting point is to consider what appears to be reasonably certain facts. These are:
1. Some oceans do not freeze at any time during the year.
2. Some oceans do freeze each and every year, in the winter months, some rapidly some only very slowly.
3. Whilst latitude plays a part in ocean freezing, it is not the sole determinative factor. For example, the Baltic will freeze but the ocean around Iceland at the same latitude will not. There are numerous examples of this.
4. DWLWIR penetrates only to about 10 microns. Absorption is not linear but logarithmic such that most of the DWLWIR had been absorbed by about 5 to 6 microns.
5. The oceans are constantly evaporating. This evaporation takes place from the top surface. It takes place from the top 10 micron layer, ie the layer where DWLWIR is almost entirely absorbed. This is an extremely important fact the consequences of which should not be under-estimated..
6. The top 10 microns (or so) of the ocean is not in fact in contact with the bulk ocean because it is already in the flux state associated with the evaporating process. It is already in the process of being ‘boiled’ off (for want of a better expression) and in the process convected and being carried upwards and away from the bulk ocean.
7. The rate of evaporation (and convection) is dependent upon the temperature of the ocean. As an ocean cools, it loses less and less energy to evaporation. Ex hypothesis, to the extent that it may be relevant, the amount is radiates also reduces as the ocean cools. .
Against this background:-
(i) What is the physical process that enables the DWLWIR to heat the bulk ocean?
(ii) How does it find its way into the bulk ocean to stop it freezing?
Those questions are fundamental and need an answer.
I have several times asked Willis (and others) to explain the physical mechanism involved. They have never been able to put forward an explanation, I have never seen any explanation of the physical process which deals with the above facts and explains how DWLWIR actually heats the oceans. Without a proper explanation we are living in fantasy land and of course, conveniently, the DWLWIR theory cannot be tested with scientific rigour.
Instead, those promoting the theory take the arse about face route and claim all sorts of figures based upon the radiative theory that they are seeking to establish. One cannot prove a theory by utilising what is conjecture at the very heart of the theory that one is seeking to prove! But notwithstanding that, let us look at the approach adopted.
A. If one uses the average figures utilised, it means that the oceans never freeze, ie., none of the oceans!.
B. This demonstrates why considering some notional average inevitably leads to wrong results and hinders one from seeing what is going on in the real world. One has to deal with each local area with its own unique local conditions. One has to consider the energy budget on a local area basis and this will include the input from warm currents and this explains why ocean freezing is not latitude dependent (albeit that latitude plays a major role with respect to the input of solar irradiance). .
C. The key is the tropical ocean. If this does not freeze then the oceans of the world do not freeze, albeit those in high latitudes will freeze over to some extent during their respective winter months.
D. The question is therefore: Is there enough solar going in to the tropical ocean? The answer to this is obviously YES as is demonstrated by Willis’s analysis of the ARGO data and his correct comment that “…there is plenty of energy from the sun to make many ocean areas reach over 30°C…” As Willis recognises there is an excess of solar.
E. In the tropics, there is enough solar to heat a body of water to in excess of 50°C. We know that to be the case since open pools in countries like the UEA get up to at least that temperature. There is in other words at least 20°C of solar over and above the summer temperature of the tropical ocean. It is very important to appreciate that there is an excess of solar in the tropics.
F. The reason that the tropical ocean does not get up to that temperature [ie., about 50°C] is that warm waters are constantly being routed away from it polewards and replenished with slightly cooler water.
G. The tropical ocean is therefore not only heating itself but is also heating the vast body of water contained in the major conveyor belts of ocean current circulation. Because it is heating not only itself but in addition the conveyor belt water, it never gets an opportunity to get above about 30°C,
If someone wanted to run the DWLWIR argument, the starting point would be to calculate how much energy is required to keep a body of water above freezing (using the appropriate figures for evaporative and radiative loss say at 1°C) and then look at which areas of the planet receive enough solar energy to provide the energy required in keeping a body of water above freezing. If that calculation was done, they would find that a body of water does not freeze in the tropics.
If one gets away from models and starts looking at the physical world, one can get a far better insight into what is going on.
Lazy Teenager: My physics teachers taught us to collect the data ahead of theory. But that was a different era, before liberal arts majors started teaching physics.
That was too narrow a view. Einstein’s development of the laws of Brownian motion led (at Einstein’s suggestion) to the first method for estimating Avogodro’s constant. The theory of cloud chambers preceded their first use to detect the tracks of atomic particles. Theoretical understanding of the properties of light (interference especially) preceded accurate measurement of the speed of light. Einstein’s general theory of relativity preceded the measurement of the bending of light rays by gravity. There are many other examples in science of theory preceding measurement, just as there are examples of measurements preceding theories.
richard verney says:
February 14, 2012 at 5:58 am
Overall a good and accurate summary but there is a query arising.
The conclusion seems to be that the mechanism which prevents ocean waters going much above 30C is that the energy which would otherwise allow it to happen gets diverted into ocean currents around the world so that further heating in the tropics is prevented.
Instead what we actually see is a raid ramping up of negative system responses above the water surface as listed by Willis.
In reality I think that ocean currents certainly do take energy away but that is a slow process. The faster process from convective activity is what keeps the temperature of the water down around 30C even if it only supplements what the oceans are doing in the background.
Convection is enabled by the slope of the lapse rate which is itself a function of gravity and atmospheric mass causing pressure and a greater atmospheric density at the surface.
Yet Willis refuses to acknowledge the influence of the slope of the lapse rate whilst getting so much else right. Very odd.
[“raid” vs “rapid” ? Robt]
@richard Verney
What deep body of water gets much above 30C? I happen to live on the shore of a deep inland lake (30 degrees latitude) and it barely reaches 30C at the surface in the summer. It’s got the same temperature limit as the open ocean. This must be explained and it pointedly cannot be explained by the warm water being displaced by cold water from farther north.
I looked for other deep inland lakes that might get warmer than 30C and found none. Not even Victoria in Africa which straddles the equator. I think this pretty much effectively quashes your idea that something magic happens at 30C which causes warm surface to be displaced by cold water flowing in from the poles as that mechanism is completely absent in deep inland lakes.
What I proposed and what I still believe to be true is that this 30C number is simply the upper limit in deep water and is set by the amount of energy available from the sun at any given latitude and where conditions do not conspire to retard evaporation for long enough for any more solar heating to happen.
I’m not sure where this repeated notion that there’s enough energy from the sun to attain far higher temperatures is coming from and I think it’s irresponsible for Willis to have thrown it out there and for you to have uncritically accepted it. In fact the highest average annual temperature of anywhere in the world is 94F or 34C in a salt desert in Ethiopia.
http://www.weatherexplained.com/Vol-1/Record-Setting-Weather.html
So I will, once again and this time armed with observations such as the highest known annual average temperature, assert that 30C is simply getting very near the highest possible average temperature determined by S-B temperature of an ideal black body 93 million miles away from a sun with a surface temperature of 5500K.
Please use actual recorded observations and links to back any refutation you may have for what I’ve just written!
@R. Gates says: February 13, 2012 at 10:56 pm
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Mr Gates
I agree that part of the reason why the ocean surface temperature does not in general get above 30°C is because of ocean over turning. Some of the energy is being used to heat the ocean below the surface and some of this goes into the ‘recharge’ for the ENSO cycle.
I made this point to Willis in his earlier post (Jason and ARGO Notes) in my post of February 10, 2012 at 8:12 am. You may like to look at that post (if you have not already done so). Numbered paragraph 3 reads:
“3. Third, I would not disagree that there is an upper cap at which surface sea temperature can obtain. I would accept that the process set out in your assertion plays a part in that cap. However, that process is not the only process in play, and I suspect it is not the dominant process. In particular, surface temperature is kept low because of the amount of solar irradiance penetrating the oceans (angle of incident, wavelength absorption varying with depth, cloudiness etc), ocean currents distributing the warm near surface temperatures to other areas and ocean mixing whereby near surface temperature is overturned with cooler water coming from lower depths. All these processes in which I include yours (and no doubt others as well), act to put a cap on surface temperature.”
Willis initially focused on far too narrow a component (just evaporation/ hydrological cycle). He has since slightly widened his horizons, but, in my opinion, he is still not looking at the wider and more complete picture of what is going on in the oceans.
I have recently made a comment on DWLWIR (see my post of today timed at 05:58 am. I would accept that in the descriptions of processes set out in paragraphs G and H of that post, I should include ocean overturning. This to some extent is inherent in the heating going into the currents which flow away in the ocean current conveyor belt, but in addition I agree with you that it forms the pooling of heat recharging the ENSO cycle.
I expect that you may have some issues with respect to what I say about DWLWIR and you may come back on that. But if you do, if you address in detail the questions posed in paras (i) and (ii) and also the point set out in the penultimate paragraph. A response dealing specifically and in some detail with those points would considerable help the debate.
Willis Eschenbach says:
February 12, 2012 at 10:07 am
Joules Verne says:
February 12, 2012 at 8:31 am
@Willis
Did it not occur to you that 30C is the blackbody temperature for the equator?
No, it didn’t occur to me, because it is absolute nonsense. The equivalent blackbody radiation for 30°C is about 480 W/m2. The TAO data shows that the average downwelling radiation 24/7/365 at the equator is about 670 W/m2. So as usual, your claim is rubbish, not just slightly wrong but cataclysmically and stupendously wrong. And also as usual, everything coming out of your electronic pen is worse than useless, it is actively misleading.
Joules, your content-free rantings are as welcome here as those of Stephen Wilde. You have proven repeatedly that your grasp of science is abysmal. Please go to tallblokes and bother him, here we’re discussing scientific topics.
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Someone whose day job is pounding nails telling someone whose day job is math, science, and engineering that the latter doesn’t understand math science and engineering.
That’s rich! Good one, Willis! You’re a legend in your own mind, that’s for sure.
How about you go away instead of me?
Willis Eschenbach says:
February 13, 2012 at 7:11 pm
“So why should I care what some anonymous troublemaking internet popup jerkwater thinks of my science? Nature and the journals think it’s good enough, and many scientists who (unlike you) are willing to sign their names to their opinions think my work is good, and that’s good enough for me.”
I’m banned here under my real name, Willis. An IP block. I’m forced to use an anonymous proxy to get around the IP block and a pen name to get around the black list.
So much for the claim there’s no censorship here, eh? I’m living proof you people can’t handle the truth.
Good Fritos-chomping reading (albeit using the experience-based mental poster-filter).
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DocMartyn says: February 13, 2012 at 5:07 pm “surfactants lower the evaporation rate of water, so would increase temperature.”
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IIRC, automated buoys recorded surface “water” temps of near 100F where oil covered the water during the Gulf oil-spill. The oil reduced the evaporative cooling of the surface quite a bit. But that’s an exceptional & localized event.
Stephen
I have read your posts here and elsewhere and know that you have been fully persuaded by N&Z. For my part, I remain unsure what to think about N&Z, I have long been thinking about some of the issues raised by N&Z and for several years, I have been posting comments (here and elsewhere) to the effect that perhaps we are failing to sufficiently take account of atmospheric temperature induced by pressure alone. I am rather disappointed by the stance taken by Anthony (although well within his rights) not to post further discussion on that paper since obviously the paper may be wrong, or partially right or nearly correct, but even if only partly correct, there is much to be learnt. The wider participation of the readers of WUWT would have been beneficial. Indeed, it is always possible to learn from things that eventually turn out not to be incorrect. I do wish that people both for and against any ‘theory’ or ‘proposition’ would be civil to one another. There is no excuse for the rudeness that one sees at time adopted.
Reverting to your point. I agree that air currents and the powering of air currents inevitably plays a part. In an earlier post, I included that. That said, one must not forget the latent heat capacity of water verses air. This is over-whelmingly on the side of water, such that even small temperature differences in water are the result of substantial energy inbalances/distribution. Further whilst convection deals with vertical profiles, I suspect that initial turbulence and hence horizontal currents and profiles are in no small part (at any rate in their initial stage), the result of the horizontal temperature profile of the ocean (which may have some corresponding bearing on the profile of atmospheric pressure above the ocean) . In other words, the ocean currents and pockets of warmer and cooler water help to some extent to give rise to the air currents.
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The Pompous Git: Thank you for mentioning the papers.
Guiness Book of World Records 1999 pg. 250
Highest Annual Mean Temperature
“Between 1960 and 1966, the highest average annual mean temperature in Dallol, Ethiopia was recorded at 94 °F” (34.4 °C) (world)
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Deep bodies of water tend to track average temperatures over longer periods of time. The approximate 30C cap that Willis notes in the Argo record is merely a reflection of the highest mean annual temperatures observed on this third rock from the sun.
It’s not magic, mysterious, or particularly noteworthy unless you had no idea that there’s a maximum temperature that a 5000K star can warm a rotating spherical gray body from a distance of 93 million miles away. There are a great many things that can cause cooling below the theoretical maximum but there’s nothing that can cause the maximum to be exceeded except a hotter sun or a closer orbit.
@Stephen Fisher Wilde
Evaporation and convection has nothing really to do with this apparent temperature cap because, as noted above, the highest annual mean temperature ever observed is in a dry salt desert at the equator where there is virtually no water to evaporate and that highest observed annual mean temperature is 34.4C.
Unsurprisingly 34.4C is the maximum temperature observed by ARGO under any conditions anywhere while 30C is the usual ceiling under nominal conditions.
There is nothing to see here unless one had no good prior understanding of basic laws of thermodynamics where one might then find this result rather surprising. *shrug*
@StephenWilde
The dry adiabatic lapse rate is established by gravity and mass of the atmosphere. The maximum possible mean surface temperature is established by the temperature of the sun and the earth’s distance from it. While there are things that can lower the maximum attainable mean temperature there is nothing except a closer orbit or hotter sun that can exceed it. “Nothing” includes the composition or density of the atmosphere which can only serve to decrease the maximum obtainable surface temperature. Temperatures above the maximum possible established by the S-B blackbody formula are a violation of fundamental laws of physics. It is this fundamental violation of physical law (intuitively reasoned by many and theoretically explained by very few) that dooms the notion that a dense atmosphere can heat a planet higher than the maximum that can be obtained by an ideal black body.
I agree with Mosher in this instance that the blog owner should exercise more discretion when deciding what is crank science what is not and if he hasn’t sufficient understanding of physics to make such determinations there are many people who can and are willing to volunteer.
For instance, Svensmark’s hypothesis that solar magnetic field variation modulates cloud formation through throttling up/down cosmic ray penetration which in turn causes more or less high altitude nucleation sites for water vapor condensation is well grounded in principle and while it may be wrong it is not wrong because it’s not physically possible. Nikolov et al’s hypothesis is wrong because it’s not physically possible. Physically impossible hypotheses are justifiably relegated to the crank or pseudo science category and if a science blog wants to be credibly open to new thinking it should IMO be careful to cull the more obvious unpublished crank science. Mosher is right and I don’t say that lightly because I have little respect for Mosher’s literacy in fundamental physics.