From the NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHY CENTRE, UK and the “search for Bigfoot Trenberth’s missing heat” department comes this bit of news that completes part of the geothermal heat loss puzzle.
Mystery of heat loss from the Earth’s crust has been solved
This discovery has been made by scientists at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) and the University of Southampton using a combination of robot-subs and remotely operated vehicles operated by the NOC.
Dr Bramley Murton, who co-supervised this research, published today in Nature Communications, said “This will really improve our understanding of how the Earth’s interior cools. Theory has long predicted that there must be more cooling in certain locations on the Earth’s crust than we could account for using the known mechanisms….and this new class of hydrothermal vent system may account for that difference.”
What makes these hydrothermal vent systems different is that the source of heat driving them comes from hot rock pushed towards the seabed by low angle faults, called tectonic spreading centres, rather than volcanic heat from magma chambers. Dr Murton has been involved in research that discovered tectonic seafloor spreading centres at a number of sites across the ocean floor.
“We expect this new type of vent system can be found in tectonic seafloor spreading sites across the globe. However, since they are almost invisible to the traditional ways of searching for hydrothermal vents, and the process driving them was not understood, they remained unaccounted for in scientific models of how heat and chemistry is transferred from inside the Earth’s crust. Our discovery was only made possible using the world-leading marine technology at the NOC” continued Dr Murton, who supervised this research by Matthew Hodgkinson, a PhD student from the University of Southampton.
This new class of venting was discovered at the Von Damm Vent Field in the Caribbean during an expedition on board the NOC maintained Royal Research Ship, James Cook. The team used sonar on the autonomous-sub, Autosub6000, to map the vent field before sending down a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to collect samples of hydrothermal fluids and minerals. Multi-beam sonar on this ROV was also used to produce a map with a resolution so high it could pick out individual pebbles on the sea floor.
The investigation revealed that minerals and chemistry at the Von Damm Vent site are very different to those from any other known vents. As a result of the unusual chemistry of the vent fluids, the fifty metre tall mounds and chimneys are formed largely of a magnesium-rich mineral, talc, rather than the more usual iron and copper sulphides. In addition, the vents release over a one thousand kilograms per second of fluid at 215°C, which carries hundreds of megawatts of heat out of the crust. Accounting for such a major flux of heat and chemicals from this new class of vent system has important implications for the balance of magnesium and calcium in seawater, which plays a significant role in past climatic conditions. This research will mean that ocean models of magnesium and calcium budgets will need to be updated and could lead to more accurate insights into Earth’s past climate.
###
This research forms part of the NOC’s ongoing research in marine geology and was funded by the Natural Environmental Research Council.
I haven’t a good feel for the magnitudes involved here. Could this have been picked up in the ARGO data? Or is it too diffuse, or perhaps too deep.
“The vents release over a one thousand kilograms per second of fluid at 215°C” , which carries hundreds of megawatts of heat out of the crust. Accounting for such a major flux of heat and chemicals from this new class of vent system has important implications for the balance of magnesium and calcium in seawater, which plays a significant role in past climatic conditions. This research will mean that ocean models of magnesium and calcium budgets will need to be updated and could lead to more accurate insights into Earth’s past climate.”
Water heat capacity;J/kg*K = 4E+03
Water temperature above ocean temperature (5 DegC);K = 210
Thousand kilogram per second; kg/s = 1000
Energy per second; J/s = 8E+08
Seconds per year: s/year = 3E+07
Energy per year; J/year = 3E+16
Total mass of the oceans; kg = 1E+21
How much the oceans would warm per year; K/year = 5E−09
How many years it would take this vent to warm the oceans by1 K; years = 2E+08
A vent which releases one thousand kilograms per second of fluid at 215 °C will increase the temperature of the oceans by 5E-09 K (°C) per year.
Without losses it would take the vents 200 Million years to increase the temperature of the oceans by 1 K (°C).
If my calculation is without major mistakes I would call the effect of these vents homeopathy!
I have often suggested that one of the questions we should be asking is why are the oceans so cold if they have received the input of Solar + DWLWIR + geothermal energy for some 4.5 billion years (or a little less)?
Where is all the accumulated energy if DWLWIR gets effectively mixed into the oceans, rather than simply driving evaporation (if it does anything at all)? . After all, the deep ocean temperature is around 2 degrees, and average temperature of the oceans around 4 degrees.
The planet has had an ocean for about 4.5 billion years (perhaps a little less) and possibly in the past, the geothermal input was even more. So given the geological time scale that this planet operates on, that is quite a bit of energy being put into the ocean.
I can’t help but think that there is a lot more to discover about the deep oceans.
@richard verney
Good Point. Here is NOAA´s explanation: Why does the ocean get colder at depth?:
«Cold water has a higher density than warm water. Water gets colder with depth because cold, salty ocean water sinks to the bottom of the ocean basins below the less dense warmer water near the surface. The sinking and transport of cold, salty water at depth combined with the wind-driven flow of warm water at the surface creates a complex pattern of ocean circulation called the ‘global conveyor belt.’»
By the IPCC climate theory the energy absorbed by increased amount of CO2 is mainly transported into the deep oceans. Hence, energy by the original amount of greenhouse gases must also be transported into the oceans! In the fifth assessment report by IPCC we find the following statement:
“Ocean warming dominates the total energy change inventory, accounting for roughly 93% on average from 1971 to 2010 (high confidence). The upper ocean (0-700 m) accounts for about 64% of the total energy change inventory. Melting ice (including Arctic sea ice, ice sheets and glaciers) accounts for 3% of the total, and warming of the continents 3%. Warming of the atmosphere makes up the remaining 1%.”
(Ref: Contribution from Working group I; On the scientific basis; to the fifth assessment report by IPCC; Chapter 3; Observations Oceans; Executive summary; Page 257)
Hence; IPCC claims that there must also be a heat flux, caused by greenhouse gases, from the atmosphere into the deep oceans.
So there must be a energy flux from the earth crust to the deep oceans, and IPCC claims that there is also an energy flux from the troposphere into the deep oceans caused by greenhouse gases. And still the temperature of the deep oceans, below 1000 – 1500 m, is 2 DegC after 4,5 billion years.
Seems quite complex to me! No way there can be a reliable model about this, a model corroborated by severe testing. I am quite sure IPCC has used or accepted inductive reasoning to arrive at their conclusion. The models can´t possibly be corroborated – because the change is too minuscule to be measured, and the historical data of the deep oceans are insufficient.
Here is a post I wrote on this: IPCC claim – The missing warming is hiding in the deep oceans!
I agree with you comment about vents. However, there is a lot more energy being released by tectonic activity, most of which on the floor of the world ocean.
The processes at these and other sea floor vents are theoretically responsible for the major global ocean chemistry cycles, e.g. calcite and aragonite seas. Long periods in Earth history with active tectonics coincide with low Mg:Ca ratios (calcite seas) and periods with relatively inactive tectonics coincide with high Mg:Ca ratios (aragonite seas). This theory ties in nicely along many lines of evidence with plate tectonics and evolution.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016703701008845
http://www.whoi.edu/science/GG/geodynamics/2005/images2005/lowenstein01_SCI.pdf
http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/30/12/1123.short
These tectonic driven cycles also dictate the first order climate regime of the planet and CO2 is merely a relatively minor feedback in the climate system.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X15006081
http://openearthsystems.org/data/readings/FridaySeminars/2012-02-10-Linda-Carbonates/StanleyandHardie1998-Secular%20oscillations%20in%20the%20carbonate%20mineralogy%20of%20reef-building%20and%20sediment-producing%20organisms%20driven%20by%20tectonically%20forced%20shifts%20in%20seawater%20chemistry.pdf
http://jsedres.sepmonline.org/content/80/1/6/F1.large.jpg
“We expect this new type of vent system can be found in tectonic seafloor spreading sites across the globe.”
Having just discovered this new type of vent, they can’t possibly know how many of them exist. So the calculation made in the post above by Science or Fiction only applies to the local cluster of vents just discovered, not to all the vents in the ocean. If it turns out that there are say 10,000 such vent sites, it would take about 20,000 years to raise the temperature of the oceans by 1 K. And if there are a million, it would only take 200 years.
We cannot possibly know how many vents existed in earlier times either, or how strong they were. Any attempt to quantify the effect on temperature will be pure speculation – or speculation based on inductive reasoning.
Based on the idea that they all vent the same amount, at the same temperature continuously. And these are just this new vent type. Black smokers, weak points in the crust, and actual volcanos are all over the ocean floors, not just at the plate junctions.
A few years ago, scientists didn’t believe it was possible for an actual violent eruption to occur at depth due to the pressure of the ocean above the volcanos. And then they found evidence of exactly the violent eruptions they doubted could happen. What we do not know about the ocean floor alone is more than enough to call any planetary science not settled yet.
SoF,
Nice article. SST has been used for the last several years to prop up the AGW myth. It is the perfect misdirection. Satellites photos have killed the Arctic & Antarctic melt meme. Satellite temps have killed the hotspot. The fallback is now ocean SST because it is too hard to measure, easily manipulated data, and vast in scope.
Never mind that air (and CO2 as well) can’t heat water. The unfortunate turn of events for these AGW shaman has been technology. Now we just need a respected physicist to squash the 33C absurdity via the properties of water and we can finally blow this house of cards over.
What appears to be missing in your calculation is an estimate of how many such vents exist. If they number in the millions, the effect could be nontrivial.
RW,
Thanks for that!
From the end of the time when real climatology was still practiced, before GIGO computer gaming took over “climate science”. Long past time to take the supercomputers away from Kevin’s playpen and get actual scientists back into the field.
“If my calculation is without major mistakes I would call the effect of these vents homeopathy!”
While it is not completely clear to me, I think that they are talking about the group of vents that they investigated. There probably are similar vents. Perhaps the authors of the study have an estimate for the number of such vents.
Sorry but earth’s interior is strictly off limits when it comes to climate.
Manmade CO2 has no effect whatsoever on sulfur fumaroles on the ocean floor.
There is no missing heat; we just didn’t make as much as they hoped for.
G
That isn’t the magic CO2 heat they are looking for.
Bruce: Magic? As in, the climate thermostat? In my house my wife controls it, so perhaps Kevin ought to ask Mrs Trenberth where the missing heat is. Maybe she played with his thermostat once too often.
LOL Bruce, but it’s actually NOT the magic CO2 heat they declare is “lost”. This isn’t heat that was once in the sky, that magically dove into the ocean and swam to the bottom and all hid in one place so that it could be easily found and identified in the future. This is HEAT generated by the EARTH, that comes to the surface of the crust and then is cooled by the ocean…thus perhaps making the oceans a little warmer down there. Anthony’s title is rather inaccurate. It should be something like “Source of ocean heating discovered”. This is “heat that was never missing” in the first place. It just explains that the deep oceans can warm up on their own, from below (without defying any laws of physics).
“Dr Bramley Murton, who co-supervised this research, published today in Nature Communications, said “This will really improve our understanding of how the Earth’s interior cools. Theory has long predicted that there must be more cooling in certain locations on the Earth’s crust than we could account for using the known mechanisms….and this new class of hydrothermal vent system may account for that difference.”
Then by default, doesn’t that mean that there are more locations “than they can account for” that are ALSO generating heat/CO2 and other GHG’s on the Earth’s crust? If they didn’t KNOW of any mechanisms that could account for the missing cooling, then they also don’t have a mechanism to account for additional heating either.
It’s going to be the oceans. At some point, hopefully before I die, scientists are going to end up declaring that there are thousands, if not millions, of thermal vents on the ocean floor that are adding CO2 and other GHG’s and HEAT to the oceans, which are then exchanging it with the atmosphere until they reach equilibrium and that Earth has always handled it, and will continue to do so forever.
Aphan says:
…hopefully …scientists are going to end up declaring that there are thousands, if not millions, of thermal vents on the ocean floor…
This is from 2007:
The true extent to which the ocean bed is dotted with volcanoes has been revealed by researchers who have counted 201,055 underwater cones. This is over 10 times more than have been found before. The team estimates that in total there could be about 3 million submarine volcanoes, 39,000 of which rise more than 1000 metres over the sea bed.
[source]
Let’s take the next logical step, since the alarmist crowd won’t: the deep ocean is getting some warmth from undersea volcanoes; millions of them, previously unknown.
It is not known how much CO2 is being emitted from these volcanoes, but what is known for a fact is that none of the CO2 is being emitted by human activity; not a single molecule.
Next, since this is 10X the number of undersea volcanoes that had been previously known, it must have an effect on atmospheric CO2 levels. But no one knows how much effect, because we don’t know how much CO2 is being emitted.
So despite that almost total lack of knowledge about natural CO2 sources, the same group of rent seeking scientists, media propagandists, and self-serving government bureaucrats keep insisting that the only course of action is to effectively deconstruct Western industrial civilization — while turning a blind eye to Asian emissions if not condoning them outright, and often actually paying for them to emit even more CO2 with money confiscated from Western taxpayers.
Lately there have been a few apologists commentin g here from the alarmist side of the ‘carbon’ debate. Would any of them care to explain why our governments are doing any of this, without an adequate knowledge base?
Don’t be shy; posting here is free.
I’ve had this very discussion with people on BOTH sides of the GW debate, and even on the skeptical side, people always say “Well, experts (whoever they are) have quantified the amount of CO2 coming from land volcanoes and it’s very, VERY insignificant, and that from the ocean would be even less”. Which just boggles my mind. There has NEVER, EVER been a complete survey of ALL the active volcanic sites on land (from active volcanoes to thermal vents that emit gasses and heat without displaying any magma or seismic activity)-to the point where they actually measured (not estimated) the amount of heat/GHG’s etc that come from each of those sites year round. So the “estimates” given by the “experts” are ridiculously feeble, inaccurate, and very outdated.
Add to that the fact that we are just BARELY beginning to explore the ocean floor, and discovering that the hydro thermal venting and actual volcanic activity we HAVE found is beyond the wildest expectations, how on earth can we take them even remotely seriously when they attempt to say that “we know” or that we could possibly estimate how much the molten core of this planet contributes to our atmosphere and oceans? The amount we DO NOT know is embarrassing, and I’m not a scientist.
It should be noted that these vents are associated with zones of sea floor spreading, which are many around the world. They are separate from sea floor volcanoes and are an additional source of ocean heating. Hypothetically there could be very many such vents. I’d be interested to know what they think is the effect of all that magnesium and calcium on ocean pH.
Aphan, you are dead right. The first active black smoker (sulphate) vent was documented by marine geophysiscists as late as 1977. Since then we have documented some hubdred more locations of this type in the deep oceans. Then in 2001 another type of hydrothermal vent was found, those caused by low temperature serpentnization processes. And now, 15 years later, Bramley Murton comes with NOC’s new type of medium temperature vents. So at he rate that we can afford to map and document these very important thermodynamic earth systems in the ocean, it will probably take another 200 years of research before we can get a proper idea of the ocean’s inventory. In the meantime, we have used trillions of green dollars to search for life on Mars and to do climate change “research”. We are not seeing the wood because of the trees (or vice versa). The answer to most of our planetary questions lies on the floor of the oceans, of which we may have mapped about 1 per cent. Remember: they cover 71 per cent of the planet’s surface and have an average depth of 3.6 km.
@dbsteatley
“Next, since this is 10X the number of undersea volcanoes that had been previously known, it must have an effect on atmospheric CO2 levels. But no one knows how much effect, because we don’t know how much CO2 is being emitted.”
Which also leads to the question: Why is no one looking at the effects of gravitational pull of the various planet positions on the changes in the number of these vents and the changes in the amount of the release of the Known Fact that they release CO2?
Are we not presently entering/leaving a period of a rather unusual alignment of the planets? Are not the increases in volcano eruptions attributed to this alignment? Wouldn’t this also cause more vents to open/release more?
Surely this is heat being lost from Mother Gaia? Squandered needlessly? Why don’t we send Greenpeace down to cap this appalling pollution?
Would the electricity that could potentially be derived from the heat differential warrant laying the cables required to transfer it to where it could be used?
It’s sort of remarkable how much more difficult it is to do real work at the depths these fissures occur. When you consider it, the pressure differential between our sea level atmosphere and hard vacuum is about 14 psi. The pressure at 3.6 km below mean sea level is about 5040 psi, 360 times higher than the differential between sea level and vacuum. It’s far more difficult to engineer deep sea habitats than it is to build something that works in orbit. It takes a lot more energy to get to orbit, but once you get there it’s a lot easier to work.
The engineering challenges faced by deep ocean explorers dwarfs those of space explorers by more than 2 orders of magnitude in that dimension alone. And of course water is opaque to most forms of electromagnetic radiation, making remote operations very difficult, so engineers depend on tethered probes. This should give people some insight into why we know more about the surface of the Moon and Mars than we do about the floor of our own oceans. None of this is helped by the strategic value of deep ocean information and the technologies used to acquire it by miners and the militaries of various organizations. Another important consideration is sea water is highly corrosive, vacuum isn’t. Certainly vacuum exploration presents its own unique problems but in general they’ve been much more tractable than deep sea exploration and that isn’t for lack of funding, much of which is private.
It’s a tough nut to crack. Space is easy in comparison.
But … but … I thought the science was settled.
Nothing new,look here !
http://www.treasure-island-shipping.com
Wow. That’s a lot of research $$$$$ there.
George,
Whilst it is classed with LR, it is also as old as I am.
I have creaky knees & dodgy ankles and a (mild) addiction to sarcasm.
I am sure it can do good science, I would check the maintenance records of some of the LSA and FFE.
If it has been done by competent folk, on time, with decent records, fine.
And, of course, the science is so settled. Soh, sohh, sohhh settled.
Auto – without a glimmer of /Sarc.
I don’t think I would trust that bunch in a shallow harbor. Among the specs of their vessel they list:
Draft:
5.5m (10ft 1in )
I predict an eventual oops moment in their future.
@tomcourt
I haven’t a good feel for the magnitudes involved here. Could this have been picked up in the ARGO data? Or is it too diffuse, or perhaps too deep.
Don’t raise that issue too loudly, or they’ll start applying corrections to the ARGO data to bring them into line with theory…
Too late…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/02/argo-temperature-and-ohc/
Perhaps you meant the following link:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page1.php
Where NASA applied a correction to ARGO without returning any buoys back to the lab to carry out an actual test to see whether the buoys were truly faulty, and were suffering from some real instrument failure or faulty calibration. Instead, they just presumed that the buoys must be wrong because the data that they were returning suggested that the oceans were cooling and that violated consensus theory. Solution: delete the inconvenient data without checking for instrument error/failure.
Sums up what passes as quality control in the filed of climate science..
I am beginning lose track of this settled science.
I will keep it simple for you.
1. Settled: c02 is a GHG
2. Settled: Adding GHGs will warm the planet ( all other things held equal)
3. unsettled: How much will adding GHGs Warm the planet
3. unsettled: How much will adding GHGs Warm the planet
That is the question, isn’t it?
The question could be answered with verifiable, empirical, testable data-based measurements that quantify the degree of global warming per unit of CO2 emitted.
Unfortunately, there are no replicable measurements like that, which are acceptable to the general scientific community.
That lack of measurements might indicate that the warming effect of CO2 at current concentrations is so small that it cannot be measured. If that’s the case, then it’s time to move on to things that matter.
Hello and Merry Christmas Steven Mosher, just wondering what “other things” are actually held equal in the Earth’s Atmosphere? Also if those other things aren’t actually held equal or constant in the atmosphere isn’t that a huge leap logically to claim anything “settled” about this bit of “science”?
Cheers,
Joe
2. Settled: Adding GHGs will warm the planet ( all other things held equal)
Hint: CO2 is measured in PPM [and to get 400 ppm, you have to dry the air] of 1 atmosphere.
So any change in PPM of 1 requires something else to change – e.i. Not Equal.
4. Unsettled: A warmer planet would be “Catastrophic”.
5. Unsettled: Ma’ Nature can’t deal with Man’s small CO2 addition.
6. Debunked: The Climate Models vs Observation.
7. Debunked: The Hockey Stick
8. Debunked: The IPCC is about science and not politics.
9. …….
(I probably should have added something earlier about “Unsettled: Just what “all other things held equal” means and just what are all those other things but I’d already gotten down to “8”.)
4. unsettled: How useful is anti-C02 emissions activism?
Without the anti-C02 politics 1-3 wouldn’t really need to be stated.
2. How do you keep water vapor and clouds equal?
1 and 3 show potential contradiction.
Settled; CO2 is a radiative gas.
Not settled whether adding CO2 will have any impact on atmospheric temperature of planet Earth.
To date, we have been unable to detect any signal to CO2 above the noise of natural variation and the error bound limitations of our best measuring devices.
If natural variation and error bounds are low, Climate Sensitivity to CO2 (if any at all) must likewise be low. If natural variation and/or error bounds are large, Climate Sensitivity to CO2 (if any at all) could likewise be large.
Thank you Mosher for trying to keep up. All other things being equal. Of course that is the operative phrase and the big caveat in the Sky that skeptics have been hounding all along. All other things will never be equal. And when the known unknowns and unknown unknowns are in that mix of the other things being kept equal then we don’t have a clue about what we are trying to keep equal in the first place.
I think Steve is on to something. The science is unsettled (or is that unsettling).
My own estimate for CS is 1 ± 2 C. It’s that -1C of warming that is the worst.
Mosher writes
And for the widely believed “feedbacks are positive”, settled or unsettled?
Steven
1. CO2 and other gases are labelled as GHGs. It doesn’t mean there is some connection with a greenhouse.
Helium and some other gasses are labelled as noble- however, I don’t doff my cap to them and call them sir.
2. Settled? You have to be kidding. All spectral diagrams show that there is considerable absorption by the atmosphere of certain wavelengths. In case you haven’t worked it out yet -the radiation doesn’t hit the surface. You can talk about backradiation or whatever , but the bottom line is that it doesn’t hit the surface. If it did then the spectrometers pointing up would show it. I can explain what happens to this ‘ disappeared ‘energy but I won’t at the moment’.
3. Agreed. I am speculating that the amount is immeasurable ( all things being equal). You are speculating too and I would suggest that you are looking in the wrong direction.
As an aside:
You are accused of being irrelevant because you majored in English ‘something’. The fact that you are involved in scientific endeavor at the moment seems to give some people a reason to look down on your efforts.
The interesting thing is that I have been heavily involved in science from childhood but recently ( the past 11 years), I have been teaching English Majors.
Most people prefer to label than to think.
Unsettled, 2.A) are all other things ever really equal?
4. Settled: of CO2’s 13 excitation wavelengths, 8 (618 to 741.7) were saturated or very nearly so at pre industrial levels, meaning there was zero or very little transmittance to the tropopause.
CO2 Electron Population vs Transmission to Troposphere:
5. Settled: two excitation wavelengths, 961 and 1063.7 not shown in the graphic, would be important but for the circumstance that are completely overwhelmed by the under appreciated IR resonance of ozone.
6. Settled: that leaves three of the thirteen wavelengths important, and they are important, and they do cause warming. They are the “wings”.
7. Settled: now let’s get to intensity. The Boltzmann equation gives the population density of electron states. It’s factor for each of the wavelengths is in the table. The population is obviously related to intensity, but in all fairness it is not the whole story and this graphic overstates the case.
8. Settled: the greatest energy of transition is usually from the ground state to when a valence electron is bumped to a higher state. This is the case for CO2 and it is the 667.4/15 micron transition that shows so impressively.
9. Settled: CO2 is a linear molecule with a “Q” channel and more likely to bend and stretch than rotate, particularly in the first transitions.
10. Bottom line: you need more than three fingers; half of the CO2 we put in the air does nothing more than bring the altitude of zero transmission closer to our noses and the louvered boxes at airports; this is why CO2 follows rather than leads temperatures historically and why temperatures during the current crawl are unimpressed with 1/3 of human cumulative emissions; see #3.
Infinity …
The things that are unknown concerning a system as complex as the earth’s climate. Therefore please establish continue to fund all aspects of investigation in order to belay the public’s sense of false guilt concerning the future.
Don’t forget pie in the sky energy ventures.
Really Mosh?
geez no one here knew that.
Your comment however, begs the real questions….
No one seems to bother with this idea of a “greenhouse” gas and whether or not it has any meaning.
Hydrogen has an absorption/radiation spectra too; one of the most common in the known universe. What makes a greenhouse gas other than we find it in greenhouses?
I would add:
4. CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing on a upward curve almost certainly due to fossil fuel use
5. The effects of CO2 on surface temperature is only proportional to doublings of its concentration
Steven M:
Extrapolate all you want, to 20% more CO2, or 50%, or 100%, or more:
Now please tell us how much warming will result?
Steven Mosher December 23, 2015 at 12:35 pm
Thanks, Mosh, always good to hear from you. Since this is the climate and all other things are NEVER held equal in the climate, point number 2 is not only very difficult to test, it is quite misleading. It is misleading because it assumes what has not ever been proven, that in an equilibrium situation such as the earth’s temperature (which varied by less than a tenth of a percent over the 20th century) a slight change in GHGs will have some discernible effect … we simply don’t know if that is true.
Free example. From about 1940 to 1970, temperatures went down when CO2 went up … so we know that for that period your hypothesis # 2 (which you claim is “settled”) is not settled at all, and in fact it is not testable. Did GHGs warm the planet during that period when the planet cooled? Maybe … but maybe not.
So what is unsettled is not only HOW MUCH adding a small amount of additional GHGs will warm the planet. What is also unsettled is WHETHER adding a small amount of additional GHGs will warm the planet at all.
Here’s a parallel. All things being equal, when it gets a bit colder outdoors your house will get a bit colder … unless you have a furnace, in which case the house will not get colder if the temperature goes from 10°F down to 3°F.
Can we ask in this situation that “How much will cooling the outdoors cool the house?”. Sure, we can ask it … but the answer is, “Not at all, because of the thermostat, duh”.
You are still stuck in the old error of thinking that
∆T = λ ∆F,
which is to say that a change in temperature ∆T is an inevitable result of a change in forcing ∆F. As the example of the house with the thermostat shows, additional forcing may do nothing at all to the temperature. Or you could consider another system, a pan of boiling water.
Is your claim true regarding the boiling water, that ∆T = λ ∆F so an increase in forcing will make it warmer? Absolutely not, EVEN WITH ALL OTHER THINGS HELD EQUAL …
To bring the boiling water example into the realm if climate, consider the open ocean. Nowhere on the planet, no matter the local conditions, does the open ocean get much over 30°C. Why? Well, nobody knows for sure. I think it is a combination of clouds and evaporation, which I have shown goes almost vertical at that temperature. So just as with the boiling water, despite increases in the forcing, the temperature of the water doesn’t go up—it just evaporates faster, and the ocean doesn’t get warmer.
So your assumption that if the forcing increases the earth’s temperature must perforce increase is obviously not some kind of global truth, it only applies to some systems at some times … and neither you nor anyone else has shown that it does apply to the earth, so your statement #2 is falsified.
Best regards and Christmas wishes.
w.
Willis you post: ” As the example of the house with the thermostat shows, additional forcing may do nothing at all to the temperature. ”
…
(Note: “Buster Brown” is the latest fake screen name for ‘David Socrates’, ‘Brian G Valentine’, ‘Joel D. Jackson’, ‘beckleybud’, ‘Edward Richardson’, ‘H Grouse’, and about twenty others. The same person is also an identity thief who has stolen legitimate commenters’ names. Therefore, all the time and effort he spent on his comments is wasted, because I am deleting them wholesale. ~mod.)
BusterBrown@hotmail.com December 24, 2015 at 11:34 am
…
You are right that “This is not always true.” For example, it is not true if the furnace runs out of gas. It is not true if the power goes off and you have electric heating. It’s also not true if the freakin’ house burns down, or if we have a nuclear war and the house is destroyed, or if the furnace is simply turned off … SO FREAKIN’ WHAT?
I have given it as an EXAMPLE, and yes, it is only valid if there is no nuclear war and the sun doesn’t go supernova and the furnace is turned on … can we move on now to what the example actually means?
w.
Willis posts: “SO FREAKIN’ WHAT?”
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(Note: “Buster Brown” is the latest fake screen name for ‘David Socrates’, ‘Brian G Valentine’, ‘Joel D. Jackson’, ‘beckleybud’, ‘Edward Richardson’, ‘H Grouse’, and about twenty others. The same person is also an identity thief who has stolen legitimate commenters’ names. Therefore, all the time and effort he spent on his comments is wasted, because I am deleting them wholesale. ~mod.)
Willis,
You are right and Steven wrong that adding more GHG won’t necessarily warm the planet. The response of earth to rapidly rising CO2 from 1945 to 1977 was to cool dramatically. That’s about half the time of the postwar CO2 increase. For around the next 20 years, temperature very mildly accidentally coincided with rising CO2, but since the late ’90s, GASTA (to the extent that it can be measured) has stayed flat or gone down a little. So in the real world, either all things aren’t equal or there are strong negative feedbacks, so no worries about any possible catastrophes from more beneficial plant food in the air.
You might well be right that the oceans can’t get much warmer on average than 30 degrees C now, but they have been a lot hotter in the past.
BusterBrown@hotmail.com December 24, 2015 at 12:07
(Note: “Buster Brown” is the latest fake screen name for ‘David Socrates’, ‘Brian G Valentine’, ‘Joel D. Jackson’, ‘beckleybud’, ‘Edward Richardson’, ‘H Grouse’, and about twenty others. The same person is also an identity thief who has stolen legitimate commenters’ names. Therefore, all the time and effort he spent on his comments is wasted, because I am deleting them wholesale. ~mod.)
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Calm down, the furnace is a “forcing” and follows the ∆T = λ ∆F equation.
Miss the point much?
w.
Willis posts: “Miss the point much?”
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(Note: “Buster Brown” is the latest fake screen name for ‘David Socrates’, ‘Brian G Valentine’, ‘Joel D. Jackson’, ‘beckleybud’, ‘Edward Richardson’, ‘H Grouse’, and about twenty others. The same person is also an identity thief who has stolen legitimate commenters’ names. Therefore, all the time and effort he spent on his comments is wasted, because I am deleting them wholesale. ~mod.)
BusterBrown@hotmail.com December 24, 2015 at 1:49 pm
Sorry, amigo, but the fact that you don’t understand my example, as shown by your claim that it would be refuted by poor insulation, doesn’t mean that the rest of the readers are in the same poor state.
w.
Willis, just think of him as the lump of coal at the bottom of your Christmas stocking 🙂
Happy Holidays everyone!
#2 has lots of unmentioned assumptions behind it. First off, you’re assuming a clear sky condition. Best guesses are 62% of the sky is cloudy. Second, you are assuming that the surface is vital in the amount of radiation ultimately emitted. Third, you are assuming that this surface radiation must be increased to compensate for the added power absorbed through the atmosphere due to increased co2 presence. Fourth, the one assumption you mention is that all things are held equal which of course is not going to happen. Fifth, you presume that radiation is dominant in the troposphere instead of conduction/convection. Sixth, you do not account for the change in emissivity due to the increase in co2 which means that more power is radiated outward from each shell of atmosphere if held at the same temperature. Now one could say that radiation transmission through a container of gas is settled science, one cannot say #2 – that adding ghgs will warm the planet even with your one stated assumption which is totally unreal anyway.
That leaves you with #1 – that co2 is a molecule that has rotational modes that absorb and emit energy in the electromagnetic spectrum which correspond to energies dominant in the black body spectrums for temperatures normally found on Earth’s surface.
Willis you posted: “You are still stuck in the old error of thinking that
∆T = λ ∆F,
which is to say that a change in temperature ∆T is an inevitable result of a change in forcing ∆F. As the example of the house with the thermostat shows, additional forcing may do nothing at all to the temperature.”
…
(Note: “Buster Brown” is the latest fake screen name for ‘David Socrates’, ‘Brian G Valentine’, ‘Joel D. Jackson’, ‘beckleybud’, ‘Edward Richardson’, ‘H Grouse’, and about twenty others. The same person is also an identity thief who has stolen legitimate commenters’ names. Therefore, all the time and effort he spent on his comments is wasted, because I am deleting them wholesale. ~mod.)
(Note: “Buster Brown” is the latest fake screen name for ‘David Socrates’, ‘Brian G Valentine’, ‘Joel D. Jackson’, ‘beckleybud’, ‘Edward Richardson’, ‘H Grouse’, and about twenty others. The same person is also an identity thief who has stolen legitimate commenters’ names. Therefore, all the time and effort he spent on his comments is wasted, because I am deleting them wholesale. ~mod.)
(Note: “Buster Brown” is the latest fake screen name for ‘David Socrates’, ‘Brian G Valentine’, ‘Joel D. Jackson’, ‘beckleybud’, ‘Edward Richardson’, ‘H Grouse’, and about twenty others. The same person is also an identity thief who has stolen legitimate commenters’ names. Therefore, all the time and effort he spent on his comments is wasted, because I am deleting them wholesale. ~mod.)
Buster,
You seem to be confusing reality and an analogy of a part there of. An analogy is ALWAYS going to break down at some point because it’s a f*cking analogy. Maybe Willis used a poor one (in your opinion), but most intelligent people would know what he is getting at.
Why not apply your lawyer skills to what he was criticizing? You got some problems with his theories? Come up with a better one of your own.
I’m no fan boy of Willis but I do know he is intelligent and can turn his thinking around if people present him with data. Which is a lot more than some people who visit this website are.
I will cut him a new one if he is speaking through his arse.
You m’boy are currently speaking through yours.
How many of these would be required to change the temp of the ocean by 0.01 degree?
We can measure 0.01 degree ocean temperature changes?
No, but some do: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/25/ocean-temperature-and-heat-content/.
I’m just interested in quantifying it.
Only one if you wait long enough.
All that, and still cannot detect any warming in the ocean, my my.
A big part of my skepticism of CAGW is that discontinuous events are hard to model and might have a very large impact on the variance of surface temperature over 100 or 1000 year time scales. If you have a discontinuous process that impacts surface temperature (a volcanic eruption or example) the best you can do is model-in an assumption for how frequently such an event occurs and how much energy is released in an average event. The trouble is that these events happen infrequently relative to the timescale in which we had the ability to measure and record them. So the assumptions are not well informed. This article is an example of a completely new discontinuous process — so how do we know that the rate of these discrete events that we observe during a very brief period is representative of the average rate?
So Trenberth said he found the missing heat from CAGW in the deep ocean, but now these guys found missing heat from the crust in the deep ocean, and they say itz their’s. Huh.
I don’t think he said he found it. I think he said that because he could not find it where the models predicted it to be it, therefore, *MUST* be hiding in the deep ocean where no-one can detected nor measure it.
“The vents release over a one thousand kilograms per second of fluid at 215°C”
That would be additional heat not the missing one.
Not directly related but relevant this is comment I psted on the other tread just before this one appeared:
“Explosive volcanic eruptions by their nature and the meaning of the word are usually short lived. As such they are unlikely to have any longer term effect. Most of volcanoes are to be found along tectonic faults and mostly in or at close proximity of two major oceans, Pacific and the far North Atlantic, both displaying distinct multi-decadal variability.
Volcanoes do not erupt by chance or at random, they are consequence of the Earth’s internal movements and changes, thus eruptions have to be seen as a kind of (often delayed) proxy for those movements. Earth’s internal activity is readily picked by thinner ocean floor crust, possibly affecting critical oceans’ currents ‘nodes’, the places where cold and warm currents are vertically stratified and interacting.
Two major locations are to be found along line stretching from Japan to Alaska (Kuroshio-Oyashio currents) and Denmark to Fram Straits (N. Atlantic-Arctic inflow/outflow) both volcanically very active. It is likely that both of these areas are sources of the natural variability, with the above mentioned currents responsible for the variability in the equatorial heat transfer pole-ward.
The greatest effect in the N. Hemisphere, has to be found in the polar and sub-polar regions ( miss-named as ‘polar amplification’), while the equatorial belt is hardly affected, with the excess heat either going northwards to the pole or upwards to the space.”
Tectonic activity is subject that is unjustifiably neglected
I am at a loss here
What makes these hydrothermal vent systems different is that the source of heat driving them comes from hot rock pushed towards the seabed by low angle faults, called tectonic spreading centres, rather than volcanic heat from magma chambers.
Crustal Spreading centers have been recognized since the late 1950s. In the mid 1960’s, their existence became incorporated into a plate tectonic system of spreading centers, transform faults, and subduction zones.
I’ll buy the concept that quantification of heat loss from thin crust into to deep ocean at these spreading centers has been and still is sketchy. I’ll buy that ocean researchers have been concentrating on the hottest such smokers and have under-investigated the less extreme, but potentially more plentiful “hot springs” at different places on the spreading centers and mid-ocean ridges, I’ll buy that they may still be neglecting the potentially even greater heat loss from hot springs along the transform faults.
But this PR of the paper makes it seem that crustal heat loss from “tectonic spreading centers” has been here-to-now unrecognized and completely discounted. That cannot remotely be true, can it?
No, it cannot be remotely true.
This part also confuses me:
comes from hot rock pushed towards the seabed by low angle faults, called tectonic spreading centres
I associate tectonic spreading centers and transform faults as high angel i.e. close to vertical. Subduction zones are low angle. What are these low angle faults described? Are they trust faults? Sympathetic normal faults?
“High Angel is a trans-galactic ark ship as a means to escape the galaxy”
At this time of year, the “high angel’ would be Gabriel. The Earth definitely moved in his day.
They are probably talking about detachment faults and this hydrothermal activity may help solve a long standing debate on how these low angle normal faults form.
Stephen – has been here-to-now unrecognized and completely discounted. That cannot remotely be true, can it?
You’re asking 2 questions and trying to get a single answer:
1- here-to-now unrecognized – Yes, that cannot be true
2- completely discounted – Its natural, not Mann made, so of course it is true.
“Theory has long predicted that there must be more cooling in certain locations on the Earth’s crust than we could account for using the known mechanisms” would mean more geothermal heat is being absorbed by the deep ocean than they thought. Yet the deep ocean is cooling and there is no signal for the ridges at the surface or from the Argo floats, in spite of warm water’s very strong tendency to rise.
215C is hardly tepid water. The stuff they expect from nearer the magma must be truly impressive.
Heat released. Q equals mass times specific heat capacity times delta T.
When the 215 degree hot water is released, assume it will cool to 15 degrees for a delta T of 200 degrees.
mass flow rate is stated at 1000 kg per second. specific heat of seawater is about 4000 joules per kg.
1000 times 4000 times 200 equals 800 megawatts.
For comparison, one nuclear power plant operating at 1000 megawatts electrical output will dump 2000 megawatts of waste heat.
The basal heat released by 10 humans is about 1000 watts. Ten million humans is 1000 megawatts. There are 700 times 10 million humans. It’s not surprising to see some ocean hotspots. The atlantic mid-ocean ridge probably releases more waste heat by orders of magnitude.
good to see oceanographers visiting an ocean
X10
Search on “Von Damm Vent Field”, all kinds of videos pop up.
The area is located directly south of Grand Cayman Is. Looks to be only a few miles offshore. The spreading zone runs E-W, so the Caribbean plate is getting split N-S, by the looks of it.
The source of the geologic squeeze that caused Florida to push up Appalachia?
The Appalachians arose long before the Caribbean Plate entered the picture.
The Alleghanian orogeny occurred during the Carboniferous and Permian Periods. The Caribbean Plate started affecting Central America in the Late Cretaceous at the earliest.
The trouble with finding any circulation in the Oceans is it gives a fatal blow to AGW theory.
If there is any reasonable circulation then a very simple energy calculation shows that it would take over 800years to raise the temperature of the Oceans by one degree Celsius.
This calculation uses the IPCC figure for the net energy imbalance per square metre and assumes that heat can be circulated to the depths of the Oceans.
Previously IPCC advocates said that there was effectively no circulation .
If only water to a tiny depth is heated then significant water temperature change is possible.
So which story are they going to stick with?
Just reading this article it looks as if someone worked out a whole lot of different paragraphs about sciency stuff related to vents and strung them together by suggesting that the heat moved by different known mechanisms was, well, could be, moving in a different way to what the settled science says.
Then, having found this out, finds new minerals in a single vent field and correctly suggests that this will change ocean chemistry at that site presumably, something already alluded to.
http://www.science.gov/topicpages/c/cayman+rise+mcr.html
I am not so sure this new hydrothermal vent type is very common. And I am pretty sure it doesn’t mean a lot for ocean heat content as the more common iron rich hydrothermal vents don’t. Lots of cold ocean, not a lot of vent water. The ‘tells’ are water temperature and seafloor biology at some distance from a vent. It gets back to normally cold (and lifeless) in just a few meters in most cases. Pacific, mainly tube worms at the top of the food chain. Atlantic, mainly shrimp.
It has been well established for decades that the magma infilling seafloor spreading is mafic basalt (that is, very iron rich as are most ‘smokers’). It was the (iron enabled) multiple symmetric magnetic field reversals along both sides of the mid Atlantic ridge that first proved seafloor spreading, back when tectonics was still controversial in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. Here the basalt is magnesium rich. Since I have rock hounded for decades and wrote about Alfred Wegman’s continental drift theory in Arts of Truth, got curious about the mineralogy and did some research.
The only magnesium rich basalt is called boninite. It is usually found along the fore-arcs of subduction zones in the Pacific, as a result of crystal ‘mush’ fractionation in deep subducted magma chambers. It was not until now associated with seafloor spreading.
This general region has been known since the 1970s. It is a very slow spreading rift valley splitting the Mid Cayman Rise. That means the usual upwelling mafic basalts are not intruding as along the midAtlantic rift (e.g. Iceland) or the Hawaiian hotspot. Rock samples were taken by submersible Alvin about 1980. Stroup did a masters thesis on these rock samples in 1981, and Eltham published a paper on them in 1987 in J. Geophys. Res. Both noted the magnesium rich content, and Eltham specifically proposed that there must be one or more deeper magma chambers underlying the Mid Cayman Rise enabling the requisite fractionation. That is, the site has features of a subduction zone, even though it is a very slow spreader.
The Von Damm vents themselves were discovered in 2010 (by NOC). But the unusual magnesium rich nature of the rock has been known since 1981. So the only thing this paper really did was sample these vent cones to discover that sure enough, they are built of magnesium minerals rather than iron minerals. Nice Ph.D thesis, but otherwise…
I would suggest that the spreading that matters is one from the Rejkenes ridge northwards ending into Gakkel ridge.
Leohle’s temperature reconstruction shows a high degree of correlation with the changes in the magnetic field north of Iceland, a possible proxy for the movements deep inside the mantle.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LLa.gif
for going back in time look at LL.gif link (delete ‘a’)
The only thing I would note is basalts of all kinds are notably high in magnesium.
Yes. Hence the Ma- of mafic.
I think boninite is more andesite than basalt.
“ristvan
December 23, 2015 at 11:38 am
It was the (iron enabled) multiple symmetric magnetic field reversals along both sides of the mid Atlantic ridge…”
And if memory serves, it was the US Navy that discovered it.
They must must have ever studied Ophiolites or Ophilitic assemblages, or how they formed.
“This research will mean that ocean models of magnesium and calcium budgets will need to be updated and could lead to more accurate insights into Earth’s past climate.”
============
Last I heard, the science was settled.
“Last I heard, the science was settled.”
It is.
Mosh said so.
Bare links with no explanation of why anyone should look at them is a clear case of posting FAIL.
These guys like buzz words like ‘budgets’. I know, I know budgets are important in accounting for CO2 pathways, heats coming and going and finances. But the sea – chemical analysis is all you really need. Calcium and magnesium are abundant elements and the sea is never starved of them, despite climate sciences recent initiation with ocean chemistry in expanding their fear budget. Magnesium is profitably extracted from seawater and billions of tonnes of shelled creatures are happy with the calcium ‘budget’. Come on you guys, you are supposed to be oceanographers (oops ‘graphers’ are superficial ‘ologists’ I guess).
Here is a magic trick for you: take 100 samples of seawater randomly from our oceans and analyze it. Ta daaaa, you get 0.04% Ca (0.1% CaCO3 equivalent) and 0.13% Mg about 3 times that of Ca. Also, the picture looks like a black smoker like you would find in the Red Sea, another ocean spreading locale. Is this actually a photo of the ‘magnesium smoker’?
But budgets of endless variety are very fluid. What we have to wait for is the budget deficit. Or should that be budget surplus?
… “and could lead to more accurate insights into Earth’s past climate.”
Ah, the obligatory “More money, please!” insertion. Do scientists have rubber stamps made up bearing this string of words?
+1
Could they also explain why the bottom of the oceans are close to freezing even when the heat flow from the Earth is near 0.1W/m2 and has been so in millions of years.
Try to figure out how many a-bombs it equals?
Possibly partly explained by the fact that the bottom ocean is constantly be replenished by cold water from the poles as part of the thermohaline circulation, Cold dense water sinks to the bottom.
But of course, the thermohaline circulation is not global, so for example, it does not apply to the Med, or other inland seas, nor perhaps to seas like the Red Sea.
Complex, there are always many unanswered questions. See my post above at (richard verney December 23, 2015 at 2:46 pm)
The problem is that no one has suggested an effective method whereby all the energy that is being inputted into the top few microns of the oceans can be sequestered to depth and thereby dissipated and diluted by volume, at a rate faster than evaporation would be driven in the top few microns.
I have often asked Willis to explain the mechanisms involved and their relative rate of work. this question has always been ducked. Willis has suggested 9or at any rate hinted at) the wind, waves, swell and ocean- overturning but all these are slow mechanical processes, and ocean over turning appears to be a diurnal phenomena only operating 12 hours a day. It is difficult to see how such slow mechanical processes could effectively sequester the energy to depth at a fast enough rate.
The action of wind, waves and swell has many problems since the average wind force over the oceans is just over BF4, and given that we know that there are from time to time very large storms covering very large areas, that inevitably means that there must be large areas of the ocean experiencing say BF2 or less (just to maintain the average) when the action of wind, waves and swell will be weak. Ditto particularly over the inland seas, ditto Caldera Lakes where due to their topography they are sheltered from wind, waves and swell for most of the time.
there are many unanswered questions.
richard verney,
Right, go back to your original question:
Obviously the energy at depth isn’t getting to the surface via radiative (LW only penetrates a few micrions) or latent (the oceans aren’t boiling) heat transfer, so that leaves sensible heat transfer — conduction and convection.
richard verney December 24, 2015 at 4:31 am
That’s a nasty, untrue accusation, Richard, and it is a long ways beneath your usual standard. I don’t “duck” scientific questions, you seem to be mistaking me for someone else.
Far from ducking the question, I dedicated an entire post to it here.
Bizarrely, you follow the specious claim that I’ve “ducked” the question by stating that I haven’t ducked it, you just don’t like my answers:
I have discussed these mechanisms IN DETAIL. Your claim is nothing but a sleazy attempt to attack my reputation. I don’t “dodge” folks like you, Richard.
I answer their questions as best I know how … and then I step on them until they cease their smarmy attacks.
So let me suggest that to repair the damage to your reputation, you 1) get back to the science, and 2) QUOTE ME WHEN YOU DISAGREE WITH ME.
I can defend my own words. I can’t defend your sick fantasies about what you might think I said or didn’t say.
Seriously, Richard, are you drunk-posting or something? This is totally unlike you, usually you are much, much better than this.
w.
Willis
Thanks the response. I am very familiar with that article, I have read it many times, and we have exchanged comments in the comment section of that article. I very much enjoy your posts, and find them enlightening and informative, but as I have commented (on a couple of occasions) I consider your article on radiating the oceans to be about the weakest of your posts. This is my opinion; it falls well short of your usual standard (which is usually very impressive and always informative) because initially it suggests that there is no difference between DWLWIR over land and over the oceans (whereas one of these is free to evaporate and when it does so there is change in sensible energy) and it sets up circular logic to seek to prove the gross energy flow budget as preferential to the net energy flow budget, and it wholly fails to address the problems that are caused by the absorption characteristics of DWLWIR in water; which is very different to the absorption of solar. But as I say, that is my opinion. Also, if I remember rightly, it is one of the threads where you suggest that clouds warm, as oppose to reducing the rate of cooling, which involve different scientific processes.
My comment is not at all untrue. It is a fair summary of our exchanges over the years. I have for many years asked you to explain the mechanism whereby all the DWLWIR that is absorbed within the top few microns of the oceans is sequestered to depth and thereby that energy is dissipated and diluted, before that energy can drive evaporation from the very top microns. If you can point to any response from you in which you detail the rate of exchange/mixing/sequestering to depth, then I will accept that my comment was mistaken, but I am confident that you will be unable to do so, since I have raised these questions, a number of times, and you have not answered them.
But since we are now responding directly to one another, perhaps we can thrash it out once and for all. Perhaps you can now answer the question raised. Perhaps we will see whether you respond with an detailed answer. You will need the following data.
First, the optical absorption of LWIR in water:
Second, the surface temperature profile of the oceans (a) is night, and (b) is day>
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceans/additional/science-focus/modis/MODIS_and_AIRS_SST_comp_fig2.i.jpg
Third, the K & T energy budget cartoon.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hFtO6F4Z3h4/Ui_sP8b-DTI/AAAAAAAANX0/5oxBtAIKqZw/s1600/EnergyBudgetT&F%5B1%5D.jpg
Now as one can see from figure 1, 50% of all LWIR is absorbed in just 3 microns. That is vertical penetration, and since DWLWIR is omnidirectional with much of it having a low grazing angle, one can guess (I can’t be bothered at Christmas to do the maths) that close to 70% of all DWLWIR is absorbed within just 3 microns.
According to K & T the average DWLWIR is 333 W/m² so 70% of this is 233 W/m² or 233 joule/ second/ square meter, and all of this is being absorbed in a slice of water just 3 microns thick, and in the tropics, the figure is a lot more. One can see that it only takes a blink of the eye, to effectively boil off the sub micron layer. .
So the question is where does this amount of energy go?:
Can it be sequestered to depth at a rate fast enough to prevent the oceans boiling off from the top down?
Fortunately for life on planet Earth, solar (which according to K & T is only about half ie.,161 W/m² ) is not absorbed in the top microns of the oceans. The top microns are transparent to solar and solar is being absorbed in a volume of about 50cm, so the energy from solar is dissipated and diluted by volume. if this were not the case, the oceans would have boiled off long ago. But on its face DWLWIR is not dissipated and diluted by volume and therein lies the problem.
As you will see from figure 2, the DWLWIR cannot be conducted to depth because the energy flow is upwards in the top millimetres.. Further, if you look at the temperature profiles, there does not appear to be strong evidence that there is much ocean overturning at the very top of the ocean, and in any event that is a diurnal phenomena and not operative for half the day. So for half of the day, ocean overturning is not effectively mixing and sequestering to depth energy that is absorbed in the top few microns of the oceans..
I am interested in the rate which the DWLWIR energy absorbed in the top few microns is mixed and sequestered to depth. Is the rate of this mixing quicker than the rate at which the energy absorbed in the top few microns would drive evaporation, because if it is not, then it would seem rather difficult for DWLWIR to be heating the oceans.
My questions are:
1. In approximate terms, what percentage of the ocean (area) is experiencing on average wind conditions of BF2 or less? The average wind speed over the oceans is a little over BF4, so that would suggest that a large percentage of the oceans at any given time must be experiencing conditions in the order of BF2 to balance out the average..
2. At BF1 (and less) what is the rate of mixing and sequester to depth of the top few microns into say the top 30 cm, by wind, by waves, by swell?.
3. At BF2 (and less) what is the rate of mixing and sequester to depth of the top few microns into say the top 30 cm, by wind, by waves, by swell?.
4. At BF3 (and less) what is the rate of mixing and sequester to depth of the top few microns into say the top 30 cm, by wind, by waves, by swell?
5. If the wind, waves and swell are not effectively mixing the DWLWIR absorbed in the top few microns what is mixing and sequestering this energy, and at what rate is this mixing and sequestering to depth taking place..
6. Consider caldera Lakes which due to their topography are sheltered from wind and are for most of the time very calm with no waves and swell. How is the DWLIR absorbed in the top few microns of these sequestered to depth at a rate sufficient to prevent driving evaporation of the top sub micron layer?
7. Consider a dew drop in a hollow on a still winter’s day when there is no wind. On the sunny side of the hollow, the dew can be burnt off within an hour of sun up, but on the shady side of the hollow, the dew drops can linger all day. Now a dew drop is not a large volume, but what process is going on, and at what rate, which sequesters and dissipates the DWLWIR being absorbed in the top few microns of the dew drop and which means that the dew drop does not get boiled off/evaporate during the day and can instead linger all day on the shady side of a hollow?
I look forward to hearing from you, and in the meantime, I wish you a very Happy Christmas, and I would like to thank you for all the effort that you have put in during the year to make this site such an interesting destination and place for debate. .
Richard, in the absence of anything resembling an apology for you nastily claiming that I have “ducked” a number of your questions, I’m not interested in discussing ANYTHING with you. I reserve my discussions for decent honest people who don’t try to libel me with ad hominem attacks and don’t speculate about my motives.
Sorry, my friend, but your mouth has taken you over the edge. I’ll pass.
w.
Let me note also, Richard, that in my post on the subject that you claim I’m “dodging”, I put up four separate and distinct arguments that would ALL have to be answered if your theory is correct.
As far as I know, you have not answered a single one of them, much less all of them … I encourage people to read my post and think about the points I’ve raised. You’ll see that I haven’t dodged anything.
w.
Richard
A lot of people misunderstand kinetic energy Its like it’s some sort of forbidden subject. Everyone imagines that they understand radiation and quantum physics etc. Most of the energy transfer between atmosphere and surface is connected to kinetic energy.Trillions of molecules travelling at the speed of sound (average) interacting with the surface of the earth and with each other. Of course there is shortwave interaction with the surface that would heat things up but as you progress to longer wave it gets less and less. So when you are discussing the radiation heat effects you seem to be missing the elephant in the room. Way more heat transfer with kinetic energy than radiation, particularly at night.
Willis
Thank you for your further reply.
A fair summary of our exchanges is as follows:
I say: If DWLWIR is consist of sensible energy capable of performing sensible work in the environment in which it finds itself, we have a potential problem since water is largely opaque to DWLIIR such that about 707 of DWLWIR is absorbed in just 3 microns and this means there is such energy that copious amounts of evaporation would result (which is not happening). N!ck St*kes on one of our exchanges calculated that there was sufficient energy entrapped in the top few microns that it would lead to 16 to 19m of rainfall (which of course is not happening).
I say: so what is the mechanism that sequesters this energy to depth (thereby dissipating and diluting it by volume) at a rate faster than that energy would otherwise drive evaporation from the very top of the ocean.
You state; ocean overturning, the action of the wind, waves and swell.
I retort; but these are slow mechanical processes and can not sequester to depth the energy with sufficient speed. I point out that ocean overturning is a diurnal phenomena so does not operate for half of the day in any event.
I further suggest that the wind, waves and the swell are not simply slow mechanical processes, but do not operate when conditions are say BF2 or less or in Caldera Lakes etc, or dew on a still calm winter’s day.
You: fail to further respond on the rate at which these processes are capable of effectively mixing the energy absorbed in the top few microns.
And you fail to do so today. you could easily answer my question. but fail to do so. I have no problem in unreservedly apologizing to you, if you can point to any comment wherein you actually deal with the rate of the processes that you claim mix this energy; not the processes, but the rate at which these processes deal with matters.
fortunately, for life on planet Earth the top few microns of the oceans are essentially transparent to the wavelength of solar. this enables solar to pass through the top microns of the oceans and to be absorbed in a very large volume of water extended over many many metres. in fact solar is absorbed all the way down to around 100 metres but most of it is absorbed in the top few metres of the ocean. this is very fortunate since it means that the energy is well dissipated and it can warm the oceans very gently.
The same does not apply to LWIR. Nearly all of this is fully absorbed within just a few microns. And that is a lot of energy entrapped in a very small volume, If that energy is sensible energy capable of performing sensible work it begs the question what is done with this energy? where does this energy go?
That is what I am asking you? How can wind, waves, swell which are slow mechanical processes effectively mix and sequester this energy to depth and thereby dissipate and dilute this energy over a large volume of water, before that energy would otherwise drive copious amounts of evaporation?
I am looking out at the Med. It is as calm as a mill pond. Not a ripple in sight. According to the weather channel, the wind speed is said to be 1 mph. I cannot feel any wind at all, and there is no sign on any trees etc. There is absolutely no wind, waves or swell mixing DWLWIR impacting upon the Med where I am staying. So why is the Med not presently boiling off from the top down as we exchange comments?
Willis, we can put an end to this if you address the rate point. We will all be able to see whether you revert constructively, or whether you continue to duck the question.
richard verney December 25, 2015 at 2:45 am
Richard
Thank you for your further reply.
A fair summary of our exchanges is as follows:
The first words out of your mouth on this thread were an false and unwarranted attack on my scientific ethics by claiming that I was “dodging” your questions.
I replied that I was not interested in discussing science with some jerkwagon who opens the conversation with an insult.
You didn’t get the message, I guess. Is there some part of I am totally uninterested in discussing science with you when you open the bidding by attacking me personally that seems unclear to you?
I say again: I don’t care about your opinion, and I have no interest in your scientific misconceptions. I have posted a full post on the issue, listing four issues that needed to be addressed if your statements were correct.
Not only have you not addressed a single one of those issues, you’ve accused me of “dodging” your questions …
So no, Richard, I won’t play your games. Go discuss your misconceptions with someone else, I’m not interested in the slightest.
w.
Willis
I note that once again you fail to address the science and once more revert to personal name calling, ie, your reference “some jerkwagon“. in all the years that I have commented on this blog, I have never once used a personal insult, but this appears to be your style. when you run out of science, you revert to name calling.
My summary is accurate. Obviously, you revert to hundreds of people so unless you are a Sheldon Cooper , one could not possibly expect you to recall in detail your exchanges with me. On the other hand, since I only have to recall one set of exchanges, I know in detail our exchanges.
in my opening comment, I fairly set out that you suggest that mechanical processes such as ocean overturning, the action of wind, waves and swell mix DWLWIR said to be absorbed and entering the oceans. I then said, that I have replied to you suggesting that these are all slow mechanical processes that cannot sequester to depth the incoming energy before that energy would ortherwise drive evaporation. You have never responded to that.
I have further pointed out that such processes do not operate for significant periods, eg., ocean overturning is not a 24/7 event, but rather a diurnal event. I have pointed out that there is little action from wind, waves, swell in BF2 (conditions (or less) and that given that the average BF condition over the oceans is a little over BF4 (and less than BF5), there must be long periods over extended areas where BF conditions means that there is little action of wind, waves and swell. I have also pointed to crater lakes which are shadowed by their typography from wind such these are calm with little wind, waves and swell, and I have also pointed to dew on winter days in shady hollows. On none of these matters have you reverted explaining what physical process is involved that sequesters energy to depth and dissipates that energy by volume, at a rate before which that energy would otherwise drive evaporation.
I am interested in the science, not on name calling. Revert on the science. I am keeping a copy of these exchanges so that in future there is a record of your failure to address the issue as top how slow mechanical processes can effectively sequester to depth and hence dissipate energy by volume at a rate faster than the energy absorbed ion the top few microns of the oceans would otherwise drive evaporation.
I hope to heart from you but I do not hold my breath because it appears from your name calling that you have run out of science, and hence the reverting to ad homs.
In the meantime, I hope that you had a good New Year.
richard verney January 1, 2016 at 2:31 am
Richard, I’m not “failing to address the science”. I’m just totally uninterested in discussing science with someone who opens the discussion with an insult.
Next time, try keeping a civil tongue in your head in your first message. Or, as I said in my last comment:
Regards and regrets,
w.
Have they taken in account that gravity itself absorbs energy. Ours or any world is not a vacuum system where you have perfect heat or energy transfer from one atom or molecule to another. Perpetual motion is not possible within our atmospheric system. (if the sun goes out, we all freeze in a short time) The theory is that heat (molecular motion) is never lost and transfers equally from one to another. My theory is that the affect of gravity causes energy absorption like when you take a super ball and it will bounce for quite a while but eventually stops due to gravity, air friction and what I call the under-inflated ball affect of a certain amount of energy loss with every contact encounter.
In Newtonian physics we had perfect super balls that bounced forever in a gravitational field. The energy is lost in the real world due to friction, which generates heat. Whether there are quantum mechanical gravitational effects that steal some energy, I have no idea, since I don’t know quantum gravity. But I’m guessing the effect, if any, is small.
Ryan December 23, 2015 at 2:06 pm
No … because it’s not true.
w.
The Earth’s core is not cooling. Once you see the elegance, logic and accurate mathematics of the gravity induced temperature gradient theory for the atmosphere expressed as a PE/KE ratio from the top of the atmosphere down or as a function of pressure (depending on whose work you are reading) it becomes clear that this effect works through rock and water as well. Absorbtion of sunlight by water at its surface creates a temperature inversion the same as happens at the top of the atmosphere and ocean currents complicate the process, also as happens in the atmosphere. With rock, volcanos and other geothermal activity are explained as magma convection currents, the squeezing of magma through cracks to the surface providing extra energy to stop cooling via the calculated lapse rate as it is forced to the surface.
Thus the Earth is heated purely by the sun from the outside in and the FORCE of gravity enhances the energy it receives increasing kenetic energy as you descend towards its core.
Potential Energy increases as molecules are organised to the outside of the planet so total energy is close to thermodynamic equilibrium throughout Earth. Divergences from equilibrium due to the Earth rotating are called either weather or climate and these terms could be just as easily applied to ocean currents or volcanic activity.
So, you have evidence from the core? Samples? And that energy at the core…where does it go? Is it sealed inside and building up like a giant pressure cooker? Or does all that energy melt rock? And metal deposits? And shift continents? There’s this law, that says when you heat something up, the amount of energy it then radiates OUT is up to the fourth power higher…where does the energy from the core go and what does it heat along the way?
Do we know how much radioactive substances the Earth core contains? They generate heat. A related unknown, why is granite – supposedly a result of melting of mud and sand – more radioactive than basalts?
Change of venue and perhaps travel and maybe I see things slightly different tonite. Warmists are creating a self fulfilling adventure. They need more of everything from testing out the limitless effects of countless forcing factors to accurately measuring to be discovered sources of CO2.
As many here point out, they have no proof but still maintain validity of the theory thus breaking all the rules of science. Even if you hold fast and don’t take the bait of disproving what is not proven, they have found a way to execute the baiting by presenting new variables that need to be investigated. Obviously this prolongs their position of status by flooding any void with their investigative pursuits.
It’s a brilliant strategy that dominates because it manipulates the senses concerning risk … it’s uncertain, therefore we need to make sure it’s not bad … it’s unjust to conduct this worldwide experiment … blah blah.
What stops such a thing ?
Eliminate funding ?
The presence of real risk ?
What do you think ?
There has to be a change in the integrity of individual scientists who are willing to speak out, even if it puts their careers at risk. If this happens, the media, then the politicians, and finally the funding, will respond to the “scandal.”
If the above doesn’t happen, then in fifty or a hundred years the Earth itself will prove them wrong.
Thanks for your thoughts. I sense what you sense and I’m beginning to think it’s not a question of fortitude but instead a question of how well scientists learn to use existing protections of freedom of speech to protect the ability to speak out.
Paul Homewood has an interesting FOI result from NOAA that demonstrates an I side the agency scientist objecting to a NOAA assisted op ed piece in the NYT.
If scientists can learn to use the current system and it’s protections I think what you point to may gave steam.
Encourage you to check out Paul’s blog …https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/12/23/fois-reveal-how-noaa-spin-lies-about-ocean-acidification/
i got interested in this a couple years ago but realized then that I didn’t have enough knowledge to even speculate so decided to keep my mouth shut — which is really really hard for a poet to do. But now certain things seem obvious.
(I do not know the true amount of heat the earth’s oceans receive from the core but I and 2 below must be true.)
!) Heat emitted by earth into space = heat received from space + heat from earth’s core. This means the earth emits more heat into space than it receives from space.
2) Without the heat from the earth’s core the earth would have a lower average temperature. This would cause the earth to be more vulnerable to changes in earth’s orbit and tilt which can cause a reduction in heat from the sun. Earth would be more vulnerable to having glacier periods.
Over long time has the heat from the earth’s core increased? Has the means of distributing the heat from the earth’s core (or lack thereof) varied over time, say continental drift causing the creation of the ocean conveyor? If there were no interchange of water with the surface the oceans would slowly warm at the bottom. If the heat remained at depth it could not be emitted into space. The average temperature of the earth (the oceans) would go up.
I need someone smarter than me to ask better questions.
Eugene WR Gallun
Since we are not like Io which undergoes gravitational pull betwixt and between Jupiter and the other Galilean moons, surely, the temperature of the core has decreased over time. there is no new energy being inputted.
The larger the planet, the longer it takes for the core to lose its temperature. the chemical composition of the core may also have an impact, particularly if it contains radioactive material, but surely cooling is its inevitable fate..
Talc? Doesn’t that contain a lot of CO2?
Are these type of vents basically percolators … and are they converting CO2 into carbonates
As understand Henry’s law, there must be enormous concentrations of CO2 in the local seawater down there.
Talc is formed by chemical reactions between CO2 and certain minerals, releasing carbonates – essentially a carbon capture reaction.
Volcanic gases are largely sulfur gases, which are acidic. In water acids will convert carbonate to bicarbonate, and bicarbonate to carbonic acid, which may decompose to release CO2 (which will go into the air), but the buffering capacity of the carbonate system in water will reduce the magnitude of changes to pH.
There are actual pools of liquid CO2 down there. And fields where gases rise in bubbles from the crust like champagne!
Same mistake made by solar believers. Some magical amplifier attaches itself to tiny extrinsic (or in this case, Earth’s inner core) changes in a natural intrinsically highly variable huge oceanic/atmospheric planet to drive measurable global temperature changes and regime shifts outside the short term and Milankovitch cycle measurable variability.
Which means that last statement, “This research will mean that ocean models of magnesium and calcium budgets will need to be updated and could lead to more accurate insights into Earth’s past climate.” is a gravy train statement meant to further funding.
This is definitely NOT heat from Anthropogenic Global Warming. Submarine vulcanism of all types (gas vents, lava flows, and geothermal heating) adds both a large amount of heat and large amounts of volcanic gases (most of which are strongly acidic, neither of which is reliably estimated nor accounted for in atmospheric climate models) to the ocean.
tadchem, thanks for the confirmation.
Have they found another CO2 sink?
Unknown is the amount of heat at the vents that is up welling hydrocarbons being oxidized.
Unknown is the amount of these hydrocarbons which are un-oxidized and escape into the
atmosphere and are read as methane.
Unknown is the amount of these hydrocarbons which are oxidized by the life at these vents.
Said life is supported by these hydrocarbons
Unknown is the amount of CO2 at these vents supplied by said oxidation vs. the amount
carbonaceous rock being recrossed by by the heat of these vents.
The above unknowns help us understand the original reading which we were given by the
OCO2 satellite.
These unknowns make the actual carbon balance unknown.
And I believe that the original theory of shifting magnetic pols was Dr. Thomas Gold.
Also at the black smoker towers, though seldom mentioned, is significant quantities
of gold and silver.
Definitely not a net sink.
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/es767spring2006/
http://www.amnh.org/learn/pd/earth/pdf/black_smokers_incubators.pdf
Not quite the missing heat I was first thinking of.
Given the size of the globe and the volume of water it holds in its oceans, I seriously doubt this creates any kind of change in resulting measurable temperature change necessary to consider when calculating past climate or ocean temperatures, let alone current calculations.
Folks, ALL the measurable action is at the surface.
Interesting that after years and billions spent on “climate research,” courtesy of U.S. taxpayers, there was still an entire hydrothermal vent system they did not even know about until now. I assure you it has nothing to do with the “lost heat” of Trenberth which goes back to a paper by Trenberth and Fasullo in 2010. They were tracking earth energy by using observations of the ocean heat content in 2004 when suddenly, for no reason at all, energy began to disappear. By 2008 eighty percent percent had disappeared, all without a reason they could point to. They were sure this disappearance was real because according to them, “…Since 2004, ~3000 Argo floats have provided regular temperature soundings of the upper 2000 m of the ocean, giving
new confidence in the ocean heat content assessment—yet, ocean temperature measurements from 2004 to 2008 suggest a substantial slowing of the increase in global ocean heat content…” Yes, 80 percent loss is substantial. What we have is that a new system of measurement comes into use and the energy disappears. If I had been the reviewer I would have sent them back to work on those floats until the discrepancy was resolved. But no, they had to rush this idiotic paper into print.The authors, the reviewers. and the editors are all at fault for not understanding the science involved and publishing trash. Or was there any peer review at all? If it was just buddy review I am not surprised that it got printed. In either case, the proper way to deal with a paper like this is to have it withdrawn.
Alex December 24, 2015 at 10:55 pm
Thanks, Alex. Mmmm … got any source or citation for that claim? I ask because the generally accepted values for heat loss from the surface are about 390 W/m2 by radiation, about 75 W/m2 for evapotranspiration, and 25 W/m2 for the sensible heat transfer by the kinetic energy mechanism that you discuss in your comment.
These estimates are based on a variety of measurements, observations, and calculations. They agree, for instance, with the Kiehl/Trenberth global energy budget, the CERES satellite radiation, and the black-body Stefan-Boltzmann equation.
Going the other way, the estimates for heat gain to the surface are downwelling longwave radiation of about 340 W/m2 and downwelling shortwave radiation of about 160 W/m2, for a total of half a kilowatt. On the other hand, on average there is almost no transfer of atmospheric energy to the surface by conduction, because the surface is generally warmer than the atmosphere and heat only flows one direction, from warm to cold.
Yes, at night sometimes the land (or the ocean) is cooler than the air. But this just means that a small amount of atmospheric energy is flowing to the surface via conduction. It still doesn’t make conductive heat transfer larger than the downwelling radiation on even the coldest night.
The part that you seem to misunderstand is that despite the fact that there are “trillions of molecules travelling at the speed of sound (average) interacting with the surface of the earth and with each other”, this doesn’t mean that there is heat transfer. Heat transfer is determined by several factors, the main one of which is the surface-air temperature difference. And since there is generally little temperature difference between the surface and the immediately overlying air, that conductive heat transfer is generally small.
So I’m totally unclear what you are basing your claims on, as you are the only person I know of making those claims.
if you haven’t done so, you might investigate the SURFRAD dataset, where you can see actual data for air temperatures, along with upwelling and downwelling radiation data.
My best to you,
w.
Interesting site. However, heat transfer, or rather solar irradiance absorption over land is quite a bit different than what occurs over the oceanic equatorial band. It is that heat budget that I am most intrigued by.
And herein could lie one of the fundamental errors.
Just because something has a temperature the signal of which temperature can be measured by an IR thermometer does not mean that it wants to or is losing heat at the temperature that is measured by the IR thermometer.
How much heat it wants to lose and how much it gives up is dependent upon its surroundings.
And if a body wants to give up some heat, and can do so by different means such as by radiation, convection, conduction etc, it does not follow that it employs all methods in equal measures.
Tectonic (tensional) spreading centres (like the Mid-Atlantic ridge or the East African Rift valley) are not characterized by low angle faults, on the contrary they are high angle. Low angle faults occur where converging tectonic plates slide (compressive) on top of each other.