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.
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This research forms part of the NOC’s ongoing research in marine geology and was funded by the Natural Environmental Research Council.
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.