More settled science: these whirlpools transport vast amount of water and heat vertically in the ocean, somewhat like hurricanes do for the atmosphere. It is fun to imagine “Trenberth’s missing heat” being sucked down one of these.
Via Yahoo News:
Satellites have shown two mysterious ‘black hole’ whirlpools in the South Atlantic ocean – ultra powerful “vortexes” which suck water down into the depths.
Two of the black holes – or “maelstroms” – have been sighted in three months by physicists from Zurich and Miami who have written a new paper using satellite altimetry to look for and identify these oceanic vortices. They write in their paper:
The South Atlantic ocean region in question is bounded by longitudes [14W, 9E] and latitudes [39S, 21S]. Using satellite altimetry data, we seek coherent Lagrangian vortices (black-hole eddies, for short) over a 90-day time period, ranging from 24 November 2006 to 22 February 2007.
The powerful vortices of current have been described as ‘maelstroms’ and are ‘mathematical analogues’ for black holes – which is to say they do exactly the same with water that black holes do with light. The discovery could give new insights into how oceanic currents transport debris and may even have implications for climate change studies.
The maelstroms are detected by their rotating edges, which the scientists found were reliable indicators of the vortex within, based on pioneering research carried out by Stephen Hawking on black holes:
‘Intuitively, one expects that any…vortex in the fluid must contain such a singularity in its interior, just as all black holes are expected to contain Penrose-Hawking singularities. This expectation turns out to be correct’.
The singularities, as they have been termed, last for months at a time, moving across the ocean without interference from other currents. Thus they can transport water of different temperatures and salinity to other areas of the ocean, potentially influencing the regional climate.
Haller and Beron-Vera found that the vortices transported water in a north-western direction 30% faster than had previously been reckoned – at a rate equating to 1.3 million cubic meters of water per second.
In addition, the maelstroms were found to occur four times deeper in the ocean than previously estimated; the study found examples as deep as 2000 meters below the surface.
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Here is the draft paper, final publication in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics.
Coherent Lagrangian vortices: The black holes of turbulence
G. Hallery and F. J. Beron-Vera (Received 13 May 2013; revised 18 July 2013; accepted 23 July 2013.)
We introduce a simple variational principle for coherent material vortices in two-dimensional turbulence. Vortex boundaries are sought as closed stationary curves of the averaged Lagrangian strain. Solutions to this problem turn out to be mathematically equivalent to photon spheres around black holes in cosmology. The uidic photon spheres satisfy explicit di erential equations whose outermost limit cycles are optimal Lagrangian vortex boundaries. As an application, we uncover super-coherent material eddies in the SouthAtlantic, which yield speci c Lagrangian transport estimates for Agulhas rings.
In this NASA visualization video (not part of the paper, but related) one can see quasi-permanent eddies throughout the south Atlantic.
Data sources: sea surface height from NASA’s Topex/Poseidon, Jason-1, and Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 satellite altimeters; gravity from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment mission; surface wind stress from NASA’s QuikScat mission; sea surface temperature from the NASA/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS; sea ice concentration and velocity from passive microwave radiometers; temperature and salinity profiles from shipborne casts, moorings and the international Argo ocean observation system.
Related articles
- Black Hole Analogue Discovered in South Atlantic Ocean (technologyreview.com)
@The Pompous Git at 7:29 am +2. LOL
@Gene Selkov at 10:48 pm +1
@dp at 11:16pm +1 (ARGO)
@DGP at 7:53am +1 (old news, adjust ballast)
@David at 10:29pm +1
A transport system for heat and trapped heat are two different things.
Yes indeed, David. This might be a transport mechanism for the vertical movement of water (and it’s heat content). But we have yet to any appreciable temperature change of the ocean with one temperature study.
Here is a chart of Ocean Heat content from 1955 to 2012,
http://i41.tinypic.com/2rrwj5u.jpg Y axis (left) in Joules and Y axis right in deg C. Measured range is 120 ZetaJoules and 0.05 deg C based upon 0-2000m water column). Three series: 0-100m, 100-700m, 700-2000m.
The image is from Willis Eschenbach, May 10, 2012 where I overlaid the temp scale and the ocean temperature measurement program phases. The warming recorded on the chart is largely the product of attempting the merge of 5 hopelessly under-sampled measurement programs with 3 phases of under-sampled ARGO over too short a history.
The “slight of hand” that the AGW community has recently resorted to explain the Pause is that the oceans are storing the heat. First, they neglect to mention how the ocean is sucking down heat in the past decade while failing to do so in the 1980-1998 time frame.
Second, if the heat is being stored in the oceans, if it stores 270 ZetaJoules to raise the temperature by 0.1 deg C, that heat cannot come back out until the atmosphere becomes colder than the water. If there is a “black hole” involved with the ocean, it is the ocean’s capacity to transfer heat from warm air to cold depths and not give it back until the next ice age cometh.
Third, even if these whirlpools are an expressway to transport heat into the deep ocean, there is no free lunch. These whirlpools greatly increase the spatial complexity of the temperature profile of the oceans, thus increasing our uncertainty in the averaged temperature of the oceans. We covered this in Decimals Of Precision….(WUWT Jan 26, 2012) and a great observation by George E. Smith (1/27/2012 8:16 pm)
So, if these mega whirlpools are powerful enough to move the needle on heat transport, they are very much under-sampled spatially on a Nyquist basis. Our uncertainty of the ocean temperature and anomalies must increase.
Furthermore, the flight paths of the Argo floats (Rasey 1/3/12 1:21 pm) might be drawn into these warmer ‘black holes’ and thus experiencing a false warming by biased sampling. Once an ARGO get’s into these ‘black hole’ whirlpools, experiencing warmer surface water descending into the depths, it will have a tendency to be trapped. So are we seeing a UHI-type of measurement bias in ARGO data?
Bringing ARGO into the equation begs the question: “Do we see these hypothetical whirlpools in the ARGO float flight paths?” If not, since they report only once every 10 days, are we under sampling in time a well as space so we are missing important phenomena?
Let us not forget Charybdis.
The “missing heat” might be the energy required to drive these vortices if we are to believe they transport vast amounts of warm surface water down 2000m against the thermal gradient.
Did I read that all the speculation about the quantities of water involved was inferred from the diameter and speed of the eddy?
Addendum to: 9:15am:
Here is a chart of [Change in] Ocean Heat content from 1955 to 2012 http://i41.tinypic.com/2rrwj5u.jpg ……
A description of the History of the Ocean Measurement Programs annotated on the chart is found here: “Reactions to the Pause….” at 7/24/2013 1:47 pm
This has probably been mentioned already but if they claim this as the mechanism that that explains how “the missing heat” went to the deep ocean then they would have to explain what happened to all the heat that must have been sucked down in the millenniums before Man noticed them.
Organized (that is, low entropy) systems are generally better than disorganized ones at maximizing gradient degradation, living organisms being a prime example. This is another.
In fact, one can suppose that this is why organized systems come about – to serve the second law of thermodynamics.
@ur momisuglyDGP at 7:53 am
I can understand warm core eddies.
Cold core eddies are a surprise. Perchance are they found under the ice caps in descending over-saline water as the ocean surface freezes?
Why and How eddies form: (Science Corner at geol.sc.edu) They also get spun off the great currents. Animation included.
Stephen Rasey says:
September 6, 2013 at 9:15 am
Excellent post. Very informative. Will mainstream climate science undertake real world investigation of such a “transport mechanism?” No. They would have to get up from the supercomputer.
Stephen Rasey says:
I can understand warm core eddies.
Cold core eddies are a surprise. Perchance are they found under the ice caps in descending over-saline water as the ocean surface freezes?
No the deep arctic is mostly isothermal. There is a depending on the time of year more saline near the surface as the Ice forms or less saline right under the ice as it melts. I am also a former submarine Sonar tech, Cold eddies come from cold currents warm eddies from warm currents. The Gulf stream is warm so you would find warm eddies in the Atlantic coming from the Gulf stream. They rise to the surface and spread out. Cold Eddies come from a cold current like off the Us coast as cold water comes down from the Arctic so you would see Cold Eddies in the Pacific. They sink cold water is more dense and sinks. Both can last for long periods and the Navy has tracked these at least sense the 80’s maybe longer. They publish a freddies report weekly and it is broadcoast to the entire fleet. This is done because of the SVP sound velocity profile. As the speed of sound is variable and affects how Submarines in particular operate with regards to being able to track or be tracked via passive sonar.That is why the Navy cares and tracks it
Caleb says: @ur momisugly September 6, 2013 at 7:29 am
….. I constantly am getting a slap-down from reality, because I think I know things, and then discover Mother-Nature doesn’t like a know-it-all……
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Now there is a quote well worth repeating.
Exam instructions:- Read EVERYTHING before doing ANYTHING.
“””””…..Lawrence Todd says:
September 6, 2013 at 3:46 am
Now we know the real cause of the Bermuda Triangle……”””””
“””””…..george e. smith says:
September 5, 2013 at 10:29 pm
Well so now we know the secret of the Bermuda Triangle……”””””
Now do only question #1
Max™ says:
September 6, 2013 at 7:38 am
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Oh thank you! I was getting very frustrated at reading all of the comments written by people who do not even know what a singularity is, let alone the math behind the description of the type of singularity we call a black holes, nor how the math used to describe one phenomena often describes another because the abstract to the very same thing. Come on folks, math is an abstraction.
KDK says:
” the British Isles – which, for you stateside readers who may be unfamiliar with that geographical designation, encompasses both Great Britain and Ireland.”
Well before you “continental” readers start lecturing our states-side readers some of you should read up a little on your geopolitical boundaries.
Ireland is most decidedly NOT one of the “British Isles”.
gymnosperm says: “Let us not forget Charybdis.”
Nor Scylla, both of them found in antiquity near the Strait of Messina. They had a reputation for swallowing entire Greek boats, perhaps 75′ long. Impossible, obviously.
[But imagine, if you will, a maelstrom with a large volcanic vent directly beneath it, opening wider and wider as the low density (bubble-filled) water fills the vortex and accelerates it. Imagine sailing into this without warning, suddenly losing buoyancy, caught and spun in the whirlpool, unable to get out, spinning deeper and deeper, choked by sulfurous CO2 vapors rising from the sea, apparently doomed. But no; that could never happen.]
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/abandoned-200711.html
‘Intuitively, one expects that any…vortex in the fluid must contain such a singularity in its interior, just as all black holes are expected to contain Penrose-Hawking singularities. This expectation turns out to be correct’.
Willis should have a blast with this
Mickey Reno @ur momisugly September 6, 2013 at 7:56 am , rightly complains:
“[This article] talks about one thing (large ocean eddies), and then uses a deceptive photo of something completely different (a small tidal whirlpool) to compare ocean eddies to the vortex at the center of a black hole’s accretion disc.”
…….
Ted Clayton says: @ur momisugly September 6, 2013 at 9:07 am
The images used for this post, although “pretty”, are a come-down on the value of an otherwise decent effort to address an interesting topic.
Even though Anthony Watts has toned down the image-excesses of bygone days, on WUWT, the site still displays a pronounced case of “picture-itus”…..
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What???
If you do not like illustrations then don’t look at them. Photos, illustrations and graphs are an important part of imparting information.
Marketing tells you that you have seven seconds to grab attention and nothing grabs attention like photos of cute kids and fluffy animals. Why in heck do you warmists are using Poley Bears as a ‘Mascot’.
REPLY to Mickey Reno and Ted Clayton
Note that I didn’t use the whirlpool photo in the sott.net or Yahoo article, please don’t try to make it sound like I did. I had issues with scale of the photo as well as the copyright (see comments upthread). I can see why they used it though, the satellite imagery in the paper made the whirlpools look like dots. They were fishing for something dramatic looking.
As for Ted Clayton’s concerns about “picture-itus”, note that I spent over 20 years in television, and pictures are what it is all about for me. Like with TV, if you don’t like the pictures, you can always change the channel.
So many of the climate blogs that are dying slow deaths don’t make the extra effort to illustrate their blog posts, and I believe that extra effort is part of what makes WUWT successful and helps to educate the readers. My stats speak for that effort:
I could be dull and plodding like some of them, but I choose to illustrate when I can. I spent over an hour finding suitable illustrations and the paper itself, since the original news article was so poorly done.
Greg Goodman said @ur momisugly September 6, 2013 at 11:22 am
I beg to differ.
The island called Ireland contains Éire (The Republic of Ireland) and Northern Ireland. Ireland is not synonymous with Éire in English though it is in Irish.
http://projectbritain.com/britain/britishisles.htm
Anthony Watts said @ur momisugly September 6, 2013 at 12:10 pm
Perhaps it’s a case that when you don’t have abundant funding, you have no choice other than to make an effort. And if you have abundant funding, why bother making an effort?
Anthony, you do an excellent job and I particularly enjoyed your recent interview with Topher Field.
jorgekafkazar says: @ur momisugly September 6, 2013 at 11:22 am
You forgot to add : http://www.earthzine.org/2011/04/12/geological-hazards-and-monitoring-at-the-azores-portugal/
Anthoy says: “….I could be dull and plodding like some of them, but I choose to illustrate when I can. I spent over an hour finding suitable illustrations and the paper itself, since the original news article was so poorly done”
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And I for one very much appreciate your efforts.
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And I for another.
(I think if all the “anothers” chimed in we’d break the record for comments.)
Personally I think this is exciting. But from start to finish it is a paper about modeling, including the apparent empirical “discovery” of actual such vortices in the S. Atlantic. Those of you who think that models never reveal anything about anything might find the paper to be fictional or problematical. If these systems are large enough and numerous enough they could transport a lot of Trenberth’s “missing heat” from upper to lower oceanic levels, just like the rescuers of the consensus theory have hypothesized.
Boy, and talk about apples and oranges! Vortices in the ocean water and gravitational singularities are at least as different as apples and oranges. About all these entities have in common are some mathematical artifices.
To those who criticized Anthony’s choice of illustrations: the illustrations are relevant and adequately labeled.
I have not read very far but the following is intriguing (the account they cite is Poe):
This literary account depicts a belt-like vortex boundary that keeps particles from enter-
ing its interior (Figure 1). Altogether, Poe’s view on vortices is Lagrangian, and resonates
with our intuition for black holes in cosmology.
As we show below, this view turns out to have some merit. When appropriately mod-
eled, Poe’s coherent belt becomes mathematically equivalent to a photon sphere, i.e.,
a surface on which light encircles a black hole without entering it. This analogy yields
computational advantages, which we exploit in locating material eddy boundaries in
the South Atlantic Ocean. Using satellite altimetry-based velocities from this region, we
uncover super-coherent Lagrangian vortices, and derive estimates for coherent material
transport induced by the Agulhas leakage.
I was piqued by the phrase “our intuition for black holes in cosmology”: I can hardly imagine what it is like to have intuition about black holes in cosmology.
oops. I ought to have “previewed”.
Matthew R Marler said @ur momisugly September 6, 2013 at 1:29 pm
If we take conjecture to be synonymous with intuition then:
So, there you have it; intuitions about hairy black holes and smooth black holes 🙂