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:
In regard to being able to heat water with infrared radiation one might wonder we go to the trouble of using electric immersion heaters for our hot water heaters, aquariums, and (for you Brits) those little electrical dohickies I saw used in London to heat a cup of water up enough to make tea. It would be far safer and easier to simply place the heating element above the water and let the infrared radiation be absorbed that way. In fact that won’t work because the only heating you’re going to get that way is via conduction through the air and since air is a poor conductor we have to immerse the heating element.
You simply cannot heat an open vessel of water from above with infrared radiation. The physical properties of water flat out prohibit it when there’s a free path for water vapor to carry away the energy in latent heat of vaporization. Period. End of story. No experiment exists showing otherwise because you can’t experimentally demonstrate what’s physically impossible.
By the way, Willis, going out and finding what is the maximum mean annual temperature ever observed anywhere over dry land and to see if that’s consistent with observed maximums in the ARGO record is called, in engineering parlance, a “sanity check”. When you see something in a data set that surprises you the first thing you do, if you can, is look at other tangentially related data sets for approximate presence or absence of the surprising thing. This kind of guidance is indispensible and in this case it quickly confirms that what you’re seeing in ARGO is simply a reflection of the maximum possible mean surface temperature for a rotating spherical gray body with appreciable thermal mass 93 million miles away from a 5000K star.
Further surprises are in store for you if you bother to google “oceanic heat budget” and read some of the long published literature. The oceanic mixed layer at lower latitudes for instance has long been known to store solar energy in the warm months when evaporation rates are lower and release it in the winter when evaporation rates are higher. This is why there is very little seasonal variation in mean mixed layer temperatures and why there is so much more seasonal variation in temperature in continental interiors. This is is very old knowledge first observed at least 200 years ago when the effect was named “continentality”.
It is also damning evidence that the ocean can easily shed energy radiatively. If it could do that then it wouldn’t be able to store summer warmth at depth in the mixed layer and release it as latent heat in the winter months. It isn’t rocket science. If evaporation rate over the ocean is retarded by moist air and slower winds while shortwave heating is at its highest the shortwave energy is thermalized at depth where much of if remains until more favorable conditions for evaporation happens. This is all perfectly reasonable and unsurprising once you understand the physical properties of water and electromagnetic radiation sufficiently.
And I resent the owner here placing my handles, as he discovers them, in the black list (which only administrators have access to) in order to stifle my contributions. It’s obvious the moderators he employs have no such willingness to censor me as every time without fail that I change my handle but not the content of my comments all of a sudden they get moderation approval within a couple of minutes instead of the long delay interposed by moderators needing to fish them out of the spam bucket where blacklisted comments go. I’m intimate with the inner workings of WordPress as only a computer scientist that contributes to it can be. Nothing is escaping me. You boys are just lucky I’m not the vindictive type because I could make life a lot more difficult for the moderators if I so choose and I could go very public with the stealth censorship that goes on around here. God only knows how many people have fallen victim to it who don’t have the knowledge or skill that I have to work around it. -ds/jv
[Reply: Dave (or “George Castanza” or “Joules Verne” or “Just the facts”, etc.), sock puppetry is against site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
@dbs
re; sock puppetry is against site policy
Yeah and so is censoring people whom you disagree with. If the owner is willing to abide by site policy then I will too. Let me know when I can start using my real name again and not be subjected to long moderation delays by automatically being shuffled into the spam queue under suspected handles.
Geoff Sherrington said @ur momisugly February 14, 2012 at 4:32 am
Not to forget Ted Steele being dismissed for defending academic standards, or Dr Alan Smith’s work on the oxygen/ethylene cycle being largely ignored. I presume you are familiar with Brian Martin’s Suppression Stories.
http://www.bmartin.cc/dissent/documents/ss/
As an aside, The Git took first year geology at UTas. Of course Prof Carey’s ideas were not part of the curriculum, but Tunksy organised a lunchtime lecture for anyone interested in learning what we were not allowed to be taught. In his first lecture, he told us that much of what were going to learn would turn out to be incorrect. He also said he was hopeful that some of us in the course would play a part in discovering the better theories that would be discovered. Academic freedom is under threat, but far from dead.
beng says:
February 14, 2012 at 7:22 am
I”IRC, 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.”
Exceptional and localized is the key word. The maximum surface energy with clear sky at high noon on the equator is about 1000W/m2. The maximum possible temperature is 365K (92C) under those conditions: http://www.spectralcalc.com/blackbody_calculator/blackbody.php
On the moon, which gets a full 1367W/m2 and it persists at that level for long enough for the regolith to reach equlibrium the maximum temperature is 130C which is also calculated at the link above (set emissivity to 0.9 to adjust for moon’s albedo) and actually measured on the moon’s surface.
Our observed maximum mean annual temperature on the earth of 35C corresponds to about 470W/m2 insolation which is just about exactly half the 1000W/m2 daily clear sky peak insolation on the surface at the equator.
Isn’t it really, really cool when observation matches theory so well? The observed ARGO max temperatures are almost perfectly predictable by the same theory that correctly predicts the maximum temperature on the earth’s moon, on the deep inland lake where I live, on Lake Victoria at the equator, and the salt desert on the equator in Ethiopia.
Nothing comes as a surprise once you understand the underlying physics well enough and in this case even if you don’t understand if you can manage to use the blackbody calculator I linked to above you can just trust that the programmer who coded in the laws of physics did his job. I LOVE science!
“I have read your posts here and elsewhere and know that you have been fully persuaded by N&Z.”
Actually Richard that isn’t quite true. I have expressed some cautious reservations as to whether their so called ATE is in fact any different from the concept of the Standard Atmosphere with its Adiabatic Lapse Rate.
I am awaiting their Part 2 before coming to a conclusion.
Despite that I think it is useful that they separate out the surface warming aspect from the simple lapse rate concept because it is easier to link such surface warming to the observed climate consequences.
What I do find puzzling is the apparent resistance here and elsewhere to any proper consideration of the long established Standard Atmosphere concept which is based on the Gas Laws.
To my mind that is in itself enough to explain observations without needing to invoke radiative physics at all.
It is all the more puzzling because the lapse rate is what enables convection and Willis relies on convection for his Thermostat Hypothesis. There is a serious disjunction in his logic there.
“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. ”
That would involve convection but not much evaporation.
Evaporation makes it easier for the maximum cap to be achieved over the oceans. In continental interiors I suggest that if evaporation doesn’t assist then vertical convection will be stronger with much the same outcome because the air circulation always reconfigures around the lapse rate set by gravity, atmospheric mass, the resultant pressure and solar input. Deserts do have substantial vertical convection via dust devils and larger similar phenomena.The maximimum temperature of deserts is also constrained by air flowing in from outside and such air originates over the oceans so you cannot treat oceans and deserts entirely independently.
“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.”
Agreed save that a greater atmospheric mass will raise the maximum attainable mean temperature too.
TimTheToolMan says:
February 14, 2012 at 12:06 am
Not sure what you call “hard evidence”, but when the actual observations show that DLR increases and the temperature of the ocean increases, and vice versa … how is that not hard evidence?
w.
richard verney says:
February 14, 2012 at 5:58 am
Bull. Put up a cite showing that I was unable to put forward an explanation, or retract your ad hominem attack. As far as I know, that’s nonsense, and I’m tired of being attacked in roundabout ways. Either substantiate your bull or retract it, richard.
w.
PS—You, and many others, seem to think that the top of the ocean is always cooler than the layer immediately below. I, however, have never seen a scientific study that makes that claim. We could start with that … but first, an apology or a retraction is in order.
Stephen Wilde says:
February 14, 2012 at 6:48 am
Again, bull. You guys want to wave my name around and make claims about what I do and don’t get right? Put a citation next to it backing up your fantasies. You are simply making things up.
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
February 13, 2012 at 5:13 pm
Lars, that all sounds wonderful until you look at the numbers.
Michael says that the missing 320 W/m2 needed to balance out the ocean heat budget are going away upwards as evaporation.
Unfortunately, the amount of evaporation is fairly well constrained, and is known to be on the order of 80 W/m2. What’s happening to the other 240 W/m2?
In addition, if DLR is not warming the ocean, then WHAT IS.
We know the ocean on average receives about 170 W/m2 from the sun.
We know the ocean loses about 100 Wm2 to sensible and latent heat.
We know the ocean is losing an average of ~ 390 W/m2 through radiation (mental note, I can check that against the Argo data.
Net losses? Just under half a kilowatt per square metre, 490 W/m2.
Net gains without DLR? About 170 W/m2.
So … if DLR isn’t making up the difference, why isn’t the ocean frozen?
w.
—————————————–
Willis, at first, thank you for the post – it is a very interesting subject, an interesting analysis and causes a lot of discussion and helps a lot of people to get a better understanding.
To your answer above:
The atmosphere is radiating DLR 320 W/m2. It must then also radiate upwards 320 W/m2. Applying the same logic it would mean it is losing on average 640 W/m2. Where does it come from? With the low heat capacity of the atmosphere how fast would it cool?
So the ocean does radiate 390 W/m2 but is not losing it, it loses only 390-320=70 W/m2.
I understand that the net heat flow from the ocean’s surface to the atmosphere considering both as grey body is depending only on the temperature of the 2 bodies and the emissivity of the ocean. It is not depending on the emissivity of the atmosphere, the other grey body.
http://www.efunda.com/formulae/heat_transfer/radiation/blackbody.cfm
Grey body comes there at the bottom.
So if we increase the emissivity of the colder body – so what? It should not change anything to the net heat transfer. Maybe I am wrong would appreciate if you can correct me here.
“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. ”
An interesting point there.
An ideal black body gets very hot under direct insolation but very cold very fast when insolation stops. The average is of course around the mean of the maximum and minimum on a rotating sphere.
I suggest that 30 to 34C is nowhere near the maximum achievable at the surface if the Earth were an ideal black body so your criticism is ill founded.
What happens instead is that on any planet with an atmosphere (which should include any surface liquids) both maximum and minimum extremes are ameliorated such that the average remains in between the two extremes but the greater the atmospheric mass the nearer to the maximum the mean temperature becomes at any given level of insolation.
That is implicit in the Gas Laws and the concept of the Standard Atmosphere but apparently ignored by AGW theory and, oddly, by Willis.
The density or mass of the atmosphere provides no heating in itself. However more molecules per unit area do react more with incoming radiation than do less molecules per unit area so the former will develop a higher temperature than the latter.
Since there are more molecules per unit area at the bottom of the atmospheric column there will clearly be a higher temperature at the bottom and that sets the Adiabatic Lapse Rate.
All well established science expressed by the Gas Laws and that explains the Earth’s surface temperature range with no need to invoke radiative processes at all.
Joules Verne says:
February 14, 2012 at 6:56 am
Joules, take a look at my post, which I referenced before. It shows the measured, not estimated but measured, downwelling radiation. The 24/7/365 average at the equator in the Pacific Warm Pool is 670 W/m2.
The blackbody temperature equivalent to that is 56°C.
So there is plenty of radiation to make it warmer, much, much warmer. Your theory (like just almost everything you write) is nonsense. The temperature of the ocean is not “set by the amount of energy available from the sun”, that’s a childish fantasy about how the world works.
Why is it that folks like you think you can ignore evidence? The evidence shows lots of energy, but nooooo, Joules knows better, he knows there’s not enough energy …
w.
“You, and many others, seem to think that the top of the ocean is always cooler than the layer immediately below”
Er, no. On average globally the ocean skin is cooler than the ocean bulk below. There is no need for it to be so always and everywhere. Everything in nature is variable.
“Bull. Put up a cite showing that I was unable to put forward an explanation, or retract your ad hominem attack.”
There is rather a lot of your stuff to search through. Could you kindly post your earlier explanation as to exactly how DWIR heats the oceans ?
While you are about it please reconcile your earlier acceptance that the Gas Laws apply in a non GHG atmosphere with your implied contention that a non GHG atmosphere would not exhibit a lapse rate with the highest temperature at the surface. Forgive me for not citing your precise words because you have avoided saying that so far despite the fact that it is implicit from your more general utterances.
Joules Verne says:
February 14, 2012 at 7:19 am
No one ever said that idiots, trolls, and troublesome fools don’t get banned here, Joules. You are living proof of that. We can handle the truth just fine, it’s jerkwagons like you that are hard to handle.
What we don’t do here is ban people for their scientific opinions. But that doesn’t matter in your case, you haven’t expressed a single scientific opinion since you got here.
And if you were banned, I’m glad to know that. Not only that, I understand why. You are an unpleasant, troublesome, idiot troll, you fit the bill perfectly.
Anthone, could you please enforce the ban and get rid of this brainless troll?
w.
JustTheFactsPlease said @ur momisugly February 14, 2012 at 8:57 am
Say what? When The Git hangs his washing out to dry, it dries much faster in the summer than in the winter. If the evaporation rate is higher in the winter than summer, the reverse would be true.
“Not sure what you call “hard evidence”, but when the actual observations show that DLR increases and the temperature of the ocean increases, and vice versa … how is that not hard evidence?”
Atmospheric CO2 continues to increase (presumably DLR along with it) but sea surface temperatures and ocean heat content stopped increasing around 2003 and look likely to be on the way down now.
The short period during the late 20th century when both were rising seems not to have been useful as evidence.
Please justify your term ‘vice versa’ because I don’t see it.
JustTheFactsPlease says:
February 14, 2012 at 8:57 am
Gosh, that’s good to know, Just. I would have never known that without your timely intervention. So … we look on land, we find max temps are around 120F or something like that. So it’s not in any way “consistent with observed maximums the Argo record” … and so what? Does that mean we’re all insane?
Now, having done our “sanity check”, we are clear that … that … that what? That the ocean doesn’t get as hot as land? Gosh, that’s a shocker, all right.
Perhaps you need to check your sanity in that way, JustTheFacts.
Me, I knew the max land temperature before I started. I also knew that since ocean ≠ land, the ocean max would be different.
So how on earth does your “sanity check” make the slightest freakin’ difference of any kind? Suppose I’d found the land max temp to be 122°F or 108°F, how would that have made the even the tiniest difference to what I wrote?
You really should stick to the facts, Just. Merely because you need a “sanity check” of researching maximum land temperatures doesn’t mean that the rest of us do. Some of us are sane already, and besides, that’s the dumbest suggestion for a “sanity check” I’ve heard in a while.
w.
Joules Verne said @ur momisugly February 14, 2012 at 7:19 am
Anyone else have no trouble reading the words of those claiming to be censored? Joules, you are the one who can’t handle the truth. We can read your words that you claim we can’t read because you have been censored. You have no grip on reality. Do us all a favour and get competent psychiatric advice.
Stephen Wilde says:
February 14, 2012 at 11:27 am
“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. ”
>That would involve convection but not much evaporation.
I take your point and wondered as I wrote it if I should qualify it a bit more. Heat convection just doesn’t move anywhere near the amount of energy that is moved by evaporation and rise of water vapor. A pound of water vapor at oh say 30C has about a thousand times more energy in it than a pound of dry air at 30C. Water vapor content over the ocean averages over 3% by weight so multiplied by 1000 that water vapor has 3000% more energy than the same air if it were dry as in our desert example. The whole column just heats evenly without ever exceeding the dry adiabatic lapse rate and remains stable. Pretty boring. Convection of water vapor over the ocean however produces violent storms the size of continents. That’s primarily because the ocean has such a huge heat capacity – storms can keep drawing and drawing and drawing stored energy out of it once they get wound up. There’s only so much heat that can be sucked out of a few inches of hot sand to drive big weather events…
So convection of dry air probably shouldn’t be discounted but in the big picture it doesn’t have a lot to do with the climate. In the first approximation (the big picture) the sun heats the ocean, the ocean heats the atmosphere, and the cold void of the cosmos cools the atmosphere. At the next approximation the sun evaporates ocean water setting up vertical energy redistribution and unevenly heats it from equator to pole causing horizontal energy redistribution. In the third approximation (at least for me) I bring land masses into the picture. The difference 280ppm CO2 and 390ppm CO2 is quite a ways down the line of successive approximations for me. It’s probably responsible for 0.3C temperature increase over land in higher latitudes if everything else is equal but everything else isn’t equal and there are natural things which cause much more departure from the mean. And it isn’t all CO2. Anthropogenic methane is responsible for good fraction of AGW and anthropogenic soot that darkens the surface of ice and snow is not insignificant either. The CO2 bogeyman is really the CO2-equivalent bogeyman but it’s not polticially correct to blame methane or soot because the United States isn’t the party emitting the soot and methane. That would be the rice growers, the slash and burn agriculturalists, wood (or dung) burning stoves for heating and cooking, domestic transportation using a high percentage of diesel engines, and a lot of other things the United States hasn’t done since passing the Clean Air Act of 1964… but I digress into politics and this is a science thread…
@Stephen Fisher Wilde (con’t)
I forgot to mention that in the desert where there’s very little water vapor to retard heat loss via radiation so the lion’s share of heat loss is radiative. The ocean sheds almost twice as much energy via evaporation (latent) as it does radiation and conduction. In the desert it sheds almost twice as much via radiation as it does evaporation and conduction. Once water vapor is largely gone there’s a big radiative window opened up and, as mentioned, the dry desert atmosphere remains remarkably stable.
There are global maps here:
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter05/chapter05_06.htm
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter05/Images/Fig5-8A.htm
showing distributions of latent, short and long wave radiative, and conductive mean annual surface figures. You can see over northern Africa where our equatorial desert lies that radiative cooling jumps up into the 200W/m2 annual mean range while over the ocean at the same latitude it averages around 60W/m2.
Enjoy. There’s a lot of information to digest in those figures if you haven’t yet got a handle on why they are what they are. I took first year oceanography in college (that text) over 30 years ago and got a perfect 4.0 grade in the course. This is really old, really basic stuff for me.
JustTheFactsPlease says:
February 14, 2012 at 11:05 am
As usual, JustTheFacts, you’ve gotten your facts wrong. My link, cited twice above and given here again for good measure, shows measured downwelling radiation (average, not even maximum) of ~1400 W/m2 in the Pacific Warm Pool … you should use the handle “CheckMyFactsPlease”. You don’t seem to be able to distinguish them from your fantasies.
w.
@ur momisugly Willis Eschenbach says: February 14, 2012 at 11:40 am
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Willis
I did not intend my post of to be an ad hominem attack on you, and I am sorry if it was taken that way. Let me rephrase:
I have several times asked Willis (and others) to explain the physical mechanism involved. Notwithstanding a number of requests having been made of them they have never responded putting forward an explanation of the physical mechanisms involved. I presume that the failure to respond with an explanation of the physical mechanisms involved is because they are unable to detail a reasonable explanation which would overcome the obvious problems caused by the ‘facts’ outlined in numbered paragraphs 4 to 6 above. I hold this view since it is reasonable to expect that a scientist who posts an article which in the subject matter involves discussion of various scientific theories (and in this regard Willis has posted articles in which he specifically discusses the GHE and/or back radiation and/or DWLWIR) and which invites debate upon the article posted, would upon request explain the physical processes involved under-pinning the scientific theories addressed in his article, I have never seen any explanation of the physical process which deals with the above facts and explains how DWLWIR actually heats the oceans.
I trust that that rephrasing is acceptable to you and removes any notion of an ad hominem. As I say, none is intended.
We have been having this debate (ie., how does DWLWIR actually heat the ocean) for a number of years (as you will have noted from my post of February 12, 2012 at 11:02 am. and of February 12, 2012 at 9:45 pm.(the latter being prompted by your request to me see Willis Eschenbach says: February 12, 2012 at 11:44 am inviting me to explain what I was referring to in my post of February 12, 2012 at 11:02 am) It looks like it is coming to head so let us knock it on the head once and for all. Let us thrash out the issues.
Accordingly, I now ask you to read carefully my post of February 14, 2012 at 5:58 am and to respond with your explanation of the physical process involved by which DWLWIR heats the oceans. A response outlining the physical processes involved will take the debate forward. In responding with your explanation as to the physical process whereby DWLWIR heats the ocean, please, in addition, specifically answer the following:
(i) To what depth do you contend that DWLWIR penetrates water?
(ii) What percentage of DWLWIR is absorbed in the first 6 microns?
(iii) What percentage of DWLWIR is absorbed in the first 10 microns?
(iv) What percentage of DWLWIR is absorbed in the first 20 microns?
(v) Do you accept that the ocean evaporate? Yes, or No.
(vi) Do you accept that evaporation takes place from the top surface layer of the ocean? Yes or No. If No, from what depth do you contend that evaporation takes place?
(vii) Do you accept that evaporation predominately takes place from the top 10 microns of the ocean? Yes or No. If No, from how many microns do you contend that evaporation takes place?
(viii) What, strength of DWLWIR do you contend gets absorbed in water at a depth lower than the layer of water which is being evaporated away as a consequence of thermal heat content of the ocean itself and incoming solar irradiance?
(ix) Do you accept that because of wind and/or waves and/or swell that for much of the time the very top microns of the ocean forms little more than a mist of spume and wind swept spray such that it is often divorced from the body of the ocean and due to upward convectional currents which have an upward vertical component it is being taken away from the body of the ocean thereby making overturning of the top microns of the ocean difficult and possibly all but impossible for much of the time? If you challenge this, briefly explain your reasons.
It will be interesting to see whether you now raise to the challenge and constructively respond, or whether you continue to duck addressing this issue head on.
Now turning to your request of me. With no disrespect, I am somewhat surprised that you either did not know or otherwise seek to challenge what I understood to be a widely accepted fact, namely that the very top surface layer of the ocean is cooler.
To assist your understanding in this regard, lick the top of your hand (or otherwise wet it) and then blow on the wetted area. You will note your skin sensing a coolness. This is the latent heat loss (and cooling effect) involved in evaporation (and is the reason why humans sweat in order to aid cooling when the body becomes too hot). The ocean is continually evaporating (heck this is the point you were making in your post) and it is this process that cools the top of the ocean. The evaporation comes from the top 10 microns or so and this is the reason why the top microns layer is cooler.
I refer you to Wikipedia (with the usual caveats but I consider that it is correct on this uncontentious point). See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MODIS_and_AIRS_SST_comp_fig2.i.jpg
You will see on the right a plot dealing with the temperature profile of the top surface. The plot starts only at about 5 microns whereafter the ocean warms to a depth of about ½ mm and then the temperature remains fairly stable for the next 5 or 6 metres. One reason why the plot may be starting at 5 microns may be because the top 5 microns are effectively totally lost in evaporation and therefore not easily measurable and/or not really representative of the surface.
I now look forward to your constructive response explaining the physical process whereby it is alleged that DWLWIR heats the oceans.
Willis writes “Not sure what you call “hard evidence”, but when the actual observations show that DLR increases and the temperature of the ocean increases, and vice versa … how is that not hard evidence?”
Because the observations didn’t show that DLR increases the temperature of the ocean. The observations show relative temperature differences that can equally well be explained by considering the decreasing DSR due to the clouds.
Is it any wonder its an article in RC and not a published paper?