Guest opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
You learn right away when studying climate that geothermal heat is ignored as a possible heat source in the climate equation. Textbooks consider the Sun as the sole source of heat. I corrected the omission in the climate portion of a textbook I produced, but it didn’t change the situation. As with everything in climate, knowledge and understanding are in their infancy, as new evidence and limitations are regularly identified. This occurs despite the hindrance of political and financial road blocks created by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and their proponents. Skeptics continue to prove the science isn’t settled. The IPCC had to limit their research to only human causes of climate change because including natural sources makes that portion inconsequential. The unintended consequence of this decision was confirmation that you cannot determine the human portion if you don’t know the natural portion and its variability. They created their own Catch 22.
The effect of geothermal on global heat energy balance is still generally rejected, but various local effects keep the issue on the radar. These include the recent story on Greenland melt rates and the role of geothermal in Antarctica. They trigger questions about the number of volcanoes active below sea level and briefly resurrect the geothermal issue. The examples presented are almost all related to geothermal heat accelerating glacier melt and restricted to ocean related glaciers, but land-based glaciers are also affected. Usually, this involves increased basal melting and accelerated movement creating “galloping glaciers.”
I developed an interest in the role of geothermal heat as a source affecting oceans and thereby global water and air temperatures while pursuing Soviet submarines in the North Atlantic in the Cold War. Knowledge of the layers of water temperature with depth was essential for the pattern of noise transmission and the efficiency of our electronic capacity to track submarines. I was always amazed at the variation in temperature with depth even in the upper 300 m, especially the number of inversion layers. Later, I worked with the late Roger Pocklington on his transect of water temperatures from Newfoundland to Bermuda and the impact on the cod fisheries.
I became aware of the mid-Atlantic ridge, its length, and proximity to the surface (Figure 1). It is like a giant heating rod constantly pumping heat into the ocean. I am unaware of any calculations of the amount of that heat, but because it is so close to the surface, an impact on surface water temperatures is possible.
Figure 1
There are two issues in play; the total impact of geothermal heat on the ocean temperatures, and the regional impact of specific hot spots, especially around volcanoes. There are insufficient measures of the extent or magnitude of temperature input by conduction or convection through direct contact with magma (average temperature of 1350°C) with bottom water.
It’s hard to find vents and active volcanoes in the deep ocean. To do so, scientists can use a CTD instrument package that measures the conductivity, temperature, and depth in the ocean. Changes in temperature and the cloudiness of the water may be a sign of a hot spring site or erupting underwater volcano.
This also applies to the amount of heat input around the ridges where the crust is thin.
In many places, the magma simply wells up beneath the weakened and thin areas of crust and fills in the cracks and fissures without ever breaking the surface.
In late 2013 an area of warm water known as “The Blob” appeared off the Oregon coast in the northwest Pacific. The media, with the help of climate alarmists, immediately began making links to global warming, El Nino, and weather events such as the drought in Oregon. The obsession and hysteria with human responsibility for all weather and climate changes created by the IPCC eliminate any consideration of natural, that is non-manmade, explanations. Most of the public think El Nino is a new manmade phenomenon.
At the Heartland Climate Conference in Washington DC., last summer, Dennis Groh, a retired professional engineer, approached me with his calculations and explanation for a geothermal source for the Blob. He identified the source of as the Axial Seamount, one of the most detailed and constantly monitored volcanic regions in the world (Figures 2, 3, 4)
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Preliminary calculations of the amount of heat produced from the Axial Seamount and contained in the Blob are revealing. The following are Dennis Groh’s calculations of that possibility.
History of events:
1998 January 25-3; 11- day earthquake but most lava moved in the first few days. Lava flow 13m thick, estimated volume 18,000 – 76,000 km 3 NOAA estimate 200 million cubic meters. A rectangular caldera 3 km x 8 km.
April 2011: Volcano subsided by more than 2.4 m. Lava flow 2 km wide and 3 times larger than 1998, so
(3) (0.018 – 0.076 km 3) Density of basalt 3.0 x 103 Kg/m3
Average temperature of ocean 2°C. Deep ocean temperature @ 3.5% salinity is (0°C – 3°C).
Blob off Oregon (1 -3°C warmer)
1000 miles’ x 1000 miles’ x 300 ft.
5.28e+6 x 5.28e+6 x 3.00e2 ft
27.88 e+6 ft2 x 3.00e2 ft
8368.52e6 ft3
8.363e9 ft3
8.363e9 ft3 of water @ 22°C
p = 62.4lbs/ft3
(8.363e9 ft3 )( 62.4lbs/ft3) = 521.88e9lbs = 5.22e11lbs
(5.22e11lbs)(453.59gms/lb) =2367.21e11 gms
or 2.37e14 gms
Amount of energy required to raise 2.37e14 gms
Heat capacity of water 15°C ~ 4.184 Joules/gm°C (5°C – 60°C 4.20 – 4.18)
1°C (1) 4.184 joules x 2.37e14 = 9.90e14 joules
2°C (2) 4.184 joules x 2.37e14 = 19.81e14 joules 1.98xe15
3°C (3) 4.184 joules x 2.37e14 = 29.71e14 joules 2.97xe15
4°C (4) 4.184 joules x 2.37e14 = 49.58e14 joules 4.96xe16
Assumption no generation of steam phase change.
2015 Axial Volcano subsidence essentially equal to 2011, so assumption estimated volume is the same for lava flow. 99×106 m3
99×106 m3 (magma ®basalt) x (3×103 Kg/m3) = 297×109 Kg
2.97×1011 Kg of basalt from magma.
(1) Energy to cool magma to melt point from 1300°C ®1200°C
Heat capacity of magma 1.0x 103 J/Kg°C
(2.97×1011 Kg)(1.0×103 J/Kg) (1.0×102C)
[2.97×1016 Joules] Þ{0.297×1017 Joules}
(2) Latent heat for crystallization of basalt
(4.0×105 J/Kg)(2.97×1011 Kg) = 11.88 x 1016
[1.19×1017 Joules]
(3) Energy to cool basalt from melt point to ocean temperature @ one mile deep
1200°C ® 0°C (assumption @ I mile depth no steam escapes)
heat capacity of basalt 1.4×103 J/Kg°C
(2.97×1011 Kg)(1.4×103 J/Kg°C) (1.2×103 °C) = 4.99×1017
[4.99×1017 Joules]
1 +2 + 3 Þ 6.21×1017 Joules [over 3 days Þ 2.4×1012 watts @caldera opening ®100,000watts/m2
6.21×1017 Joules could raise 2.37×1014 gms of water
(6.21×1017 Joules) 6,120×1014
4.184/gm°C (2.37×1014gms) = 9.92×1014 = 626°C
The amount of energy from the magma was far in excess of what was needed to supply the heat necessary to create the “Blob anomaly.” The IPCC omits many variables in their political goal to produce predetermined results. Unfortunately, because of the narrow focus, the IPCC created, even regular climatology and climate science omits, ignores, or doesn’t even now about many factors. Some of this occurs because of the diversion of research funding almost exclusively to proving their anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis. Every single factor is important to achieve levels of understanding for accurate short and long-term forecasting. In the blame game, the omission of anything that affects the global energy balance that is even half the amount claimed as the human contribution is important. Since the human portion is a minuscule amount, this means that virtually every natural source, including geothermal heat, is critical.
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A geothermal mechanism cannot start and stop quickly enough to cause what is observed. A geothermal mechanism cannot cause cyclic warming and cooling in both hemispheres.
Solar cycle changes were the cause of the warming in the last 150 years. Observational proof to support that assertion would be sudden significant planetary cooling, correlating with an interruption to the solar cycle.
The friendly warm blob is being replaced by the expanding cruel cold blobs. It will be interesting to see how quickly the cult of CAGW paradigm disappears. Some may find it fun to listen to the lame, hooky excuses to try to explain away the end of global warming.
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomnight.4.7.2016.gif
It is a fact that there are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleo record (1500 year cycle with beats of plus of plus or minus 500 years) and every 10,000 years or so there is abrupt cooling. The cycles of warming and cooling correlate with solar cycle changes.
The last abrupt cooling event occurred 11,900 years ago (Younger Dryas abrupt cooling event) at which time the planet when from interglacial warm to glacial cold with 70% of the cooling occurring in less than a decade. The Younger Dryas abrupt cooling event lasted from 1200 years. The long duration of the YD abrupt cooling event rules out comet impacts as a cause of the YD cooling as comet impacts will cool the earth for less than a decade after which the planet will warm. It is important to note the YD abrupt cooling occurred at time when solar insolation at 75N was maximum which is one of dozen or so observations which indicate Milankovitch’s theory is a silly urban legend.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles#Problems
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~peter/Resources/Holocene.vs.Stage5e.html
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/transit.html
An explanation other than solar variation for the Younger Drias is long lag from Milinkovitch maximum of favoring thawing until ice coverage decreases to interglacial minimum, and when it is moderate to moderately high variation of sunlight reflected by the ice is great as ice coverage changes. This makes the climate more unstable than well within an interglacial period. A likely trigger was disruption of northward heat transport in the Atlantic by a large volume of cold fresh water running from land into the Atlantic.
Nonsense, times two. And no Urban legends are not ‘part’ of the solution.
Climate science is chock full of urban legends as climate science does not have a first order idea what causes cyclic abrupt climate change. The number of times an urban legend has been repeated and who repeats an urban legend does not change the fact that an urban legend is an urban legend.
Melt Pulse Urban Legend
The largest melt water pulse in the Holocene occurred a 1000 years before the YD abrupt cooling event. Regardless, basic simulation show the more than 2/3 of yearly warming of the North Atlantic is due to summer warming due to the tilt of the earth. i.e. Summer. The heating due to the North Atlantic drift current warms Europe and the North Atlantic only a few degrees Celsius.
Third observation to debunk the Melt Pulse urban legend is probe analysis indicates there is no discrete deep water thermal haline current to interrupt, so melt pulse will not stop the North Atlantic drift current is mostly due to the jet stream.
Amplification Urban Legend
The planet cools when there is a super volcano eruption for less than decade not 1200 years. Solar insolation was absolutely maximum at the time when the Younger Dryas occurred.
P.S. Observations will prove what which is correct. The sun is different than the standard model and is the cause of almost all of the warming in the last 150 years or the CAGW theory which attributes close to 100% of the warming in the last 150 years.
There is peer reviewed analysis that supports the assertion that solar cycle changes correlate with the cyclic abrupt climate and change and the melt water hypothesis is all wet, an urban legend.
http://www.geo.vu.nl/~renh/pdf/Renssen-etal-QI-2000.pdf
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/Gulf.pdf
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/the-source-of-europes-mild-climate
Regarding William Astley claiming in part in his very long response:
“Third observation to debunk the Melt Pulse urban legend is probe analysis indicates there is no discrete deep water thermal haline current to interrupt, so melt pulse will not stop the North Atlantic drift current is mostly due to the jet stream.”
Meltwater from northern ice does not disrupt a discrete deep water thermal haline current because the discrete currents affected are surface ones. Any deep water current that is affected by this is a diffuse one much wider than discrete surface currents.
As for another point, melting of thick glaciers or ice sheets of scale of part of a continent can easily lag insolation at relevavant latitude by a large amount of time, and can still be in progress with progress merely becoming most rapid when the relevant insolation is at or approaching peak.
“William Astley
April 8, 2016 at 8:41 pm
…
The friendly warm blob is being replaced by the expanding cruel cold blobs. It will be interesting to see how quickly the cult of CAGW paradigm disappears. Some may find it fun to listen to the lame, hooky excuses to try to explain away the end of global warming.”
…
No explaining away necessary since CAGW now means “climate change”.
Let’s try a sanity check using very rough approximations for ease of arithmetic.
The specific heat of water is about four times the specific heat of magma.
Magma is about three times as dense as water.
It will therefore take roughly the same energy to warm a cubic meter of water or of magma by one degree C.
The volume of water is about 1500 km x 1500 km x 0.1 km ~= 2.25 x 10^5 cubic km
~= 2 x 10^14 m^3
The lava flow was about 10^8 m^3
There is about 2 x 10^6 times as much water as magma by volume.
The heat of fusion of magma is about 400 times its specific heat.
The specific heat of liquid magma is roughly the same as the resulting basalt. The total temperature change is about 1300 deg. C. Add the heat of fusion and we find that one cubic metre of magma has the energy to heat roughly 2 x 10^3 m^3 of water by one deg. C.
There are 2 x 10^6 m^3 of water for every cubic metre of magma. The resulting temperature change will be very roughly:
(2 x 10^3) / (2 x 10^6) = 0.001 deg. C.
I would say that the sanity check is failed. Am I missing anything?
If I have one criticism of Dr. Ball, it would be that he uses too many different units. It confuses the audience and is a source of error for authors.
Here’s a link to a similar calculation for geothermal heat along a spreading ocean ridge.
Agreed, it’s frankly a mess.
OOPS I owe Dr. Ball an apology. The calculations were not his.
The above statement makes no sense.
In his calculations, Groh uses 99×10^6 m^3. That accords with “NOAA estimate 200 million cubic meters”.
What to make of, “estimated volume 18,000 – 76,000 km 3”? For ease of arithmetic let’s take 40,000 km^3. That could be a pile of lava 200 km by 200 km by 1 km thick. If we take the thickness as closer to 10 m, our pile becomes 2000 km by 2000 km by 0.01 km thick. That doesn’t accord with any volcano that I am aware of in my lifetime.
How about “A rectangular caldera 3 km x 8 km”? If we take the thickness as 10 m we get: volume = 3 x 8 x 0.01 x 10^9 m^3 ~= 200 x 10^6 m^3. That accords with the NOAA estimate.
The statement “estimated volume 18,000 – 76,000 km 3” seems like a total red herring. It exceeds the NOAA estimate by a factor of 200. If we take it as true though and multiply the result of the calculation in my previous post by 200 we get 0.001 x 200 = 0.2 deg. C. So, even if we take a ridiculous volume of magma, we still don’t pass the sanity test by an order of magnitude.
It seems to me that we shouldn’t ignore the possible significance of the coincidence of geothermal activity and the blob, although as Bob points out the blob seems to have started somewhere else (perhaps another volcano near Hawaii?). We know that the total depth of magma in the magma tube is much more than the 2.6m used in this calculation. Could there have been internal convection within the magma tube that kept the exposed magma hot? Could water have been drawn down into the deeper magma tube, heated, and then ejected? We need 1km x 1km x 125m of magma cooling from liquid to solid to explain the blob.
Then why 1917-1918 and 93-94 which we used as analogs for the cold winter of 13-14, forecasted months in advance. One of the things that happens when you analog is you things before that can be used to FORECAST not hindcast. All I am saying Bob is we have jumped on this, and at the time with much ridicule, for the cold eastern winters and was because of previous similar warm “blobs” joe D Aleo has a whole series of winters where this kind of thing existed what we factored into forecasts. This year I think the warmth of the enso event managed to overcome the warm ring leftover, though there were outstanding winter events and in mid Jan, the energy market was in a panic because of unseen cold. As long as that warm ring stays there, enough ridging develops over NW Namer in winter to make it at least interesting, if not very cold. But its no mysterya as to set analog years and these were touted in preseason 13-14 and 14-15 forecast that were out in August on Weatherbell. com That being said, the nino did fight enough to negate it this year, though again, it wasnt like 97-98 where there was no winter ( example outstanding eastern blizzard and something only seen once in 50 years, a below 0 morning in NYC with no snow on the ground. Chicago had 4 subzero mornings, more than the other super ninos and the end game this year is much like 2007 with a blow torch march but wild opening to April. BTW the other reason for the blob, its dar warm, but in the late 1950s, same kind of thing happened before the PDO crashed again as I am confident it will in coming years. CHeers
Although NYC achieved -1, Philadelphia’s lowest temperature the same day and the same winter was 8. The winter (Dec-Jan-Feb) in NYC and Philadelphia was much warmer than normal, and warmer in Philadelphia than in 1997-1998.
In Philadelphia it was the 3rd warmest winter on record at 41.4 F after 1931-1932 (44.1 or 43.3 F depending on the source) and 1889-1890 (42.3 or 42.2 F depending on the source). 1997-1998 is tied for 8th with 1936-1937 at 39.5 F.
See:
http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php/topic/32739-4th-warmest-winters-on-record-in-philly/
Which was posted in 2012 and the recent winter’s warmth is mentioned at:
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/weather/Winter-No-3-warmest.html
The high ranking for warmth was due to a blowtorch December. Philadelphia broke its record for warmest December with 51.2 F, which beats by 6.7 F the 44.5 F of December 1923.
Philadelphia’s official weather records start in 1872.
Joe,
Thanks for all you do, including FOREcasting, ie practicing science in general as well as longer term meteorology.
Patterns do repeat and historical analysis of WX and climate can and do work.
5.28e6*5.28e6*3e2 is 8.36e15 cubic feet of water, not 8.36e9. The mass of this much water is 2.37e20 grams, not 2.37e14 grams. The energy required to raise the temperature of this much water is 9.9e20 joules, not 9.9e14 joules.
For 4 C, it should be double that of 2 C or 3.96 x 10^15.
The figures for 2, 3 and 4 degrees C should be 1.98, 2.97 and 3.96 respectively times 10^21 joules using a corrected mass of 2.37e20 grams.
Yes, I was going to point out that error too. Does not seem to have had any proof reading.
This is an interesting idea presented but it would be a lot better if it was written in a coherent and legible fashion. I really can’t bothered to try and decrypt this jumbled mathematical mess and try to guess what it is meant to be.
“4°C (4) 4.184 joules x 2.37e14 = 49.58e14 joules 4.96xe16 ” Huh?
Sometimes it’s 106 others e6 then xe6 , units are sprayed liberally and confusingly throughout and in the middle of equations.
J/Kg Joules J/Kg°C gm gms oh come on. There are standard for units. If we are going to play science it would look a bit more credible if you could at least get the units right.
Firstly kilo in small k , big K is the temperature unit kelvin. Unit names written in full are not capitalised: joule, kelvin etc.
kg NOT Kg
g NOT gm or gms
J or joule NOT Joules
J/kg/°C or J/(kg°C) NOT J/Kg°C
These corrections of naming and usage of units appear to me as a distraction from more serious math errors other than consistency of usage and naming of units.
i have question? Would anyone like to speculate?
Since the oceans formed hundreds of millions of years ago do you think the average temperature of the deep oceans has remained the same, risen or fallen. Just curious. Certainly they would have become saltier. And though there are conveyors that circulate water from the surface down and up again how much of the deep ocean is actually affected by conveyors?
Inquiring poets want to know!
Eugene WR Gallun
water is highest density a few degrees above freezing. This sinks, ice floats and warmer water rises. So, I think apart from transitory localised changes the answer is yes. The temperature / density relationship will not have changed and so deep water will remain very much the same.
Eugene, no one would know. We’ve only known the temp down there for a few decades. It might be inferred by proxies (though I very much doubt it) but they would be poor recorders. The Earth has lost hardly any of its interior heat in millions of years. Indeed, it loses just 100c in a billion years. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/07/earth-still-retains-much-its-original-heat
As an aside (not what you asked) it should ALWAYS be remembered (by those who believe and disbelieve in AGW) that we’ve only be measuring with decent thermometers for a VERY short time, and that we are recording tiny differences – often well within error bars. The argument is actually about the physics of CO2 and how that physics affects the climate system.
Please, can we first settle some basics?
1. Is the anomalous heat “BLOB” extra to the global temperature of the oceans as a whole, or is it an exogenous item? That is, does the hot blob form without a necessary counteracting generation of colder water?
2. If the heat in the ocean blob is exogenous, coming from outside the ocean system and not from a redistribution within it, in theory the hot rock mechanism can be one such source. However, this dictates that the whole earth, not just the oceans, is involved, because if the rock heats the ocean anomalously, it must reciprocally cool the rock system anaonamously. Have these departures form equilibrium been observed?
3. As with geothermal heat under glaciers as in recent press, is not the main consideration whether these are changing within the time span of human science investigation of the globe? If, for example, they are associated by some with measured ‘climate change’ what guarantees that they have not changed in similar ways forever? My expectation from a geology background would be that the geothermal event span is usually long in comparison to a century of measurements, though nobody denies the occasional days-long events like actual eruptions. Is it here postulated that geothermal flow such as from the ridges can change significantly over periods less than a century (to pick a figure for clarity), while studies such as those on dating from old boreholes presupposes some constancy of rock temperatures?
This is complicated to express – please let me know if I need to clarify.
Another source of heat which I have not seen discussed in this context is from the fusion of ice.
There was an OMG sea ice minimum 2012 in NH. This would have dumped significant amounts of latent heat as sensible heat into the ocean surface. The general clockwise rotation of ocean currents caused by coreolis forces means this warmer water would migrate from Bering straight region down the NW coast.
“this warmer water”
It isn’t warmer. Because of the warmth, there is more of it. But it is formed at the melting point of ice (in seawater -1.8°C).
Melting ice does not warm the surrounding water. You don’t use ice cubes to warm your drinks.
This whole thread is going crazy.
The IPCC and the Warmistas know nothing of the oceans at depth and certainly not anything of the ocean floors. They do not know what caused ‘The Blob’ and do not wish to investigate as they are sure, as with every other Climate event that we humans alone are to blame. It is not the Sun, not the Volcanoes, not the Earth’s core, but it is most certainly us. With a road block like this in place, the IPCC and Warmistas are free to collect revenue from all.passers by. The IPCC and Warmistas can blame.mankind and not natural processes, because they never bother looking for any as ‘the science is settled’.
More people have walked on the Moon than have been to the deepest depths of the ocean!
It was considered hypocrisy to suggest that there were numerous, uncountable numbers, of hydrothermal vents on the bottom of the Ocean just 40 years ago, when all of the basic theories and tenants of Global Warming were chiseled in stone. Serious studies on hydrothermal vents did not even begin till the 1990s.
Put apart the issue of deep waters heating by these lavas flowing on the bottom of the oceans, which should be the incidence of their total volumes everywhere on the planet (not only off the US coasts), probably huge volumes, on the sea level rise?
Global warming is real, and it’s increasingly clear man has very little to do with it.
Don’t deny it!
A high pressure system set up off the coast of Alaska and just sat there. Clear air allowed sunlight to penetrate to the ocean and warm it. This “omega block” steered polar air southward through the continental interior and we had numerous “polar vortex” events that winter.
Along with the heat released from the volcanic vents the fact that the heat is rising will create currents that help (or could hinder) the phenomenon.
For those of you that have never lived on a lake with a boat dock in an area where the lake freezes over in the winter, there is another factor to consider.. A small air pump, about the size of one of the larger Aquarium pumps and your local pet store, will prevent the area around the dock from freezing. Where is the heat coming from? What is the source of that heat? Not the cold, below freezing air it is pumping down into the little tubs mounted to each pylon. That little pump circulates enough water to draw up warmer water from the bottom of the lake and thus, keep the area around the pylons open and preventing damage.
All of the heat does not have to come from the “Vents”. Water heated by the vents will rise, and draw the surrounding water along with it. Surely, this will affect the direction and magnitude of the N. Pacific current and/or Alaska Current in some way. This could even create or enhance the “eddy” between the currents and the shore currents and cause a pool/area of warmer water. Look at the various paths the N Pacific and Alaska Currents take in that portion of the Pacific. The maps are on Google Images. What happens to these when you add in the atmospheric effects and the thermal vents effect?
Interesting thread, with a gross error found in the original article, Bob’s argument about the warmer water at the surface coagulating further west. What I take out of this is two things. Bob, you make a good case, but don’t get too far ahead of yourself. Warm water, caused near the coast by some volcanic process could certainly move via deep circulations and currents. Indeed, the extra heat of such an event might even cause previously unseen currents and movements in the deep ocean, like a chimney effect. While we can guess that the probability of such things is low, or that there cannot possibly be enough extra heat, let’s not discount things of which we know nothing. Which segues into my 2nd takeaway, which is an excellent point made near the end of the article. Scientists do NOT set out to PROVE things. They set out to learn things, to ask honest questions. They hopefully do this with humility and a strong sense that they could be wrong. When scientists cross the line from asking questions, looking for answers, publishing their results and waiting and instead fall into lawyer-like advocacy, telling stories, picking a narrative, deciding that they know a truth and dogmatically sticking to it, they have stopped being scientists and turned into politicians, into scientologists, cultists. Most of the people contributing to the IPCC are trying to PROVE humans cause global warming and no longer deserve the label scientist. Political advocates must NOT be given public money to “prove” their pet hypotheses to advance their politics. We need to abolish the IPCC, to stop government funding for this type of “sciency” advocacy. I will vote for brutal, hellish cuts, if any of you political classes are reading.
But, but, butt politicians really really really like scientists to give them a mechanism for policy based fact making. cAGW is that pseudo-science mechanism.
Mickey: Thank you for your observation that the IPCC failed to follow the scientific method by disproving the AGW hypothesis. As Richard Lindzen said years ago, the consensus was reached before the research had even begun.
In the case of this article the word “possible” in the title indicates it is a hypothesis. In my opinion, despite the math error, and presentation of different interpretations, the hypothesis is not disproved. Perhaps the only way to effectively disprove the hypothesis is to show previous ocean surface temperature data that shows similar “blobs’ before the current volcanic eruption, or “blobs” independent of any earlier eruptions. This data does not exist, which speaks to the problem of inadequate data identified by Hubert Lamb as his reason for setting up the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia. As he wrote in his 1997 autobiography,
“…it was clear that the first and greatest need was to establish the facts of the past record of the natural climate in times before any side effects of human activities could well be important.”
This is still painfully correct. The billions wasted on models and global warming should have been spent building adequate historic data sets. Perversely, the opposite happened as they closed weather stations to pay for the political charade designed to prove the AGW hypothesis.
Further to my last posting Dennis Groh emailed me the following
I approached Dr. Ball with a concept which I represented as an order of magnitude estimate. I felt several of the explanations for the blob seemed to suggest approaches which did not seem sound thermodynamics to him. I wondered if the blob might not be the result of a sudden release of energy from the ocean floor. My search for information on undersea volcanoes led him to the information on the Axial Sea Mount. The significant research on this site being done by Oregon State University in cooperation with the NSF, NOAA and Smithsonian offered perhaps the best quantified hard data measurements of any sub sea geothermal activity.
I attempted to do a quick order of magnitude calculation to see if there was possibly adequate energy from an eruption that could have been adequate to form the “BLOB”. I never advertised it as a definitive research effort. I had just finished his rough calculations before the Washington meeting and I shared them privately with Dr. Ball. They were not in a form one would have prepared for publication. My calculations showed the energy release from the Axial Sea Mount was not trivial. Those interested can verify the very well documented research on Axial Sea Mount magma outflow available and perform their own independent analysis. I believe, based on my research the heat flux from this one geothermal source is significant and intermittent. I have no basis for extrapolation or comparison to any of the estimated millions of other undersea geothermal heat sources which may or may not be significant. However, I believes undersea geothermal research deserves much greater resources to understand what role it plays in ocean circulation patterns. A related area of research is what factors trigger the movement of tectonic plates and corresponding geothermal activity. I am pleased the post has caused a spirited and healthy debate on this poorly understood subject area and hopes some good will result.
“Undersea geothermal research deserves much greater resources to understand what role it plays in ocean circulation patterns.”
Amen! The negligible flow of persistent heat through the sub-oceanic crust should not lead us into the illusion that on a transient basis, undersea volcanism can create some spectacular surface heat anomalies.
Read Cannot
Mr. Layman here.
Is “The Blob” like something along the lines of “The Polar Vortex” in that it’s nothing new. Such things have happened before whether Man noticed them or not. Those in the respective fields have used the terms. What’s “new” is that the terms are being presented to the public as something unusual.
Am I off base?
It’s caused by the “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge” along the west coast. The blocking ridge in the atmosphere causes down – welling (sinking motion) in the ocean, warming the water. Simple physics. I tried to tell that to the folks at NOAA when I worked there, but they need to believe it’s caused by CO2.
Hmm…
First thing I did after seeing Bob T’s, rebuttal post with animation, (thx Bob) was to go for a dive.
Got out the Google Earth and headed for the sea floor topology in the regions I saw on the animation. Whew…I said, look at all those bumps that look a lot like volcanoes. lol
How much monitoring do we do in this area? Do we know how active it has been here lately?
Mid Ocean heat anomaly coalesces with the offshore blob…. are they somehow connected physically?
Always more questions than answers.
I should be finishing up my refresher primer on the IBEX mission:
IBEX’s Enigmatic Ribbon in the sky and its many possible sources
Authors
D. J. McComas, W. S. Lewis, N. A. Schwadron
First published: 24 February 2014
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013RG000438/full
Is there a compressional quality associated with the SST anomalys in Bob T’s first rebuttal post.
Rotational effect on N. hemisphere plates is compressional.
Well now. Blob or not. We are living on a ball of fire. Of course heat are transported to the surface. Question is, – how much and is it even?
It’s not even.
It’s not even. Not in area. Not in time.
Anyone know if the new bathymetry maps have been released to Google Earth yet?
Dr. Tim, always good to hear from you. Thank you for an interesting post.
You say inter alia:
Let me start the calculation over:
1,000 miles = 1.61E+6 metres
300 feet = 91.4 metres
1000 miles x 1000 miles x 300 feet =
1.61E+6 metres * 1.61E+6 metres * 91.4 metres =
2.37E+14 cubic metres
A cubic metre of sea water weighs about 1.03E+3 kilograms, just over a tonne … and that is 1.03E+9 grams. [ERROR UPDATE! This should be 1.03E+6, not 1.03E+9 grams]
As a result, unless I’ve made a mistake, as is always possible, I’d say that the weight of water involved is not 2.37E+14 grams as your calculations show … instead, it is on the order of 2.37E+
2320 grams,ninesix orders of magnitude larger.And that, of course, means that assuming there are no other errors in the math, the heat of the lava is nowhere near large enough to provide the needed heat, it is short by about
74 orders of magniitude..Please check my numbers, and again, my thanks for an interesting post,
w.
Let me add that the reason I looked at the calculations is what I call a “nose for numbers”. What I do is when I see a scientific claim involving a quantity or a number, I look at it mentally in the simplest way I can to see if it seems possible.
Here’s what I did for this one. I imagined a volcano erupting, like Mauna Loa in Hawaii say. I guessed that the lava flow might cover, oh, maybe ten miles by 300 feet wide by 50 feet deep or so. The exact numbers don’t matter, I want to get a sense of scale of lava flows.
Next, I imagined the chunk of ocean, a thousand miles by a thousand miles by 300 feet deep, and I thought “If I drop a red-hot stone ten miles long by 300 feet wide by 100 feet deep into that chunk of ocean, how much will it warm up?”
The answer, of course, was “Hardly measurable.” A thousand miles by a thousand miles is a BIG chunk of ocean. Even if the rock was ten miles wide as well as ten miles long, it will do nothing to the temperature of that much ocean.
w.
“If I drop a red-hot stone ten miles long by 300 feet wide by 100 feet deep into that chunk of ocean, how much will it warm up?”
I didn’t think about dropping a red hot stone into the water … I thought about heating up the stone until molten – under the water – until it got to the necessary temperature to “eject” into the water. Then I wondered how much heat/energy went directly into the rock & how much was released to the surrounding environment over the time period that the energy was added to the rock.
Too many variables missing (for me) to even guess at how much was released to surrounding environment, but in my limited estimation it could be characterized as oodles.
“it is short by about 7 orders of magniitude..”
Almost an order of magnitude of orders of magnitude.
Further research reveals the following:
This says the “sheet flow” is 3 km x 500-800 metres, and the total volume is given as 18-76 E+6 m3. I had guessed ten miles by 300 feet by 100 feet for my mental exercise. Calculating that now in metric gives me 45E+6 cubic metres.
As Dr. Ball said, the recent flows seem to be about three times that size … but that is still orders of magnitude too small to do the required heating.
Best regards to all, thanks to Dr. Ball,
w.
You made one mistake along the way, Willis. One ton is about 1000 kg = 1,000,000 g (a million, not a billion).
But that still leaves an error of 10^6. so instead of 626C, it would be 0.000626 C.
It should have been clear something was wrong when the mass of the lava and the mass of the seawater were basically the same in the calculations. (10^14 g = 10^11 kg). This is why people should stick to one set of units (rather than mixing pounds, grams and kg) in a set of calculations.
Thanks, Tim. I woke up this morning and went “Dang, I overestimated by a thousand!”, and when I get to my computer I find you’ve beaten me to it. I’ve annotated my comment to correct my error.
However, as you say, my point remains. He’s out by orders of magnitude.
w.
l still think the reason for the blob was the high pressure sitting over the area.
l have seen it happen before with SST. lf they are areas of high pressure sitting over an area for around a month or more at least during the spring/summer months. Then they start to have a warming effect on SST.