Guest essay by Wim Röst
The best kept secret in the ‘climate world’ probably is: the cooling capacity of the deep sea. Some attention is paid to the heat uptake by the oceans, but there is no attention for the cooling capacity of the deep sea. That capacity is huge and might be (and might have been) of decisive importance in climate and climate change.
Fig. 1. Temperatures in a North South section of the Atlantic Ocean
Source: http://i.stack.imgur.com/rugfb.png
The oceans are on the average 3.688 meter deep. The surface layer, directly connected to the atmosphere, is only 100-200 meter thick. Below this layer we find cold to very cold water. And, as we know, water has an enormous capacity to absorb heat. Which means that it also has an enormous capacity to cool.
The temperature of the top surface layer is on average 18 ºC. There is a big difference in temperature between the surface layer and the layer 200 meters deeper. According to AR5 (fig. 3.1d) the surface layer on the average is 6,3 ºC warmer than the layer 200 meters below. Nearly all upwelling will affect the temperature of the surface layer in a way that it is cooling the surface strongly.
Below a 1000 meter temperatures are only 5 degrees ºC or lower.
Fig. 2. Thermocline in a tropical ocean
Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/THERMOCLINE.png
The total water content of the oceans is enormous. One cubic kilometre contains a billion m3. And there are nearly 1,3 billion cubic kilometres of water in the ocean. But, with a surface area of 362 million km2 the top layer of the oceans (the upper 200 meters) ‘only’ has a content of 72.4 million km3. Most ocean water (95%) is cold ‘deep water’.
There is a considerable mixing of water masses in the top layer of the ocean. Mostly driven by wind.
Fig. 3 Areas with upwelling waters
Source: NOAA
The coldest and deepest ocean water takes (at the most) an estimated 1000 years to reach the surface layer. Which means that other less deep ocean layers are welling up faster.
Every year the [average] surface layer is cooled down by a huge quantity of cold ocean water welling up. When reaching the surface, that cold water is heated by the sun.
In the ‘climate world’ it is assumed that there is a constant cooling of the surface layer by upwelling waters.
At least one million cubic kilometres of cold ocean water is welling up every year*. If this one million cubic kilometres in any year would become two million cubic kilometres or, only half a million cubic kilometres, this change would have a substantial effect on the surface temperature of the Earth’ oceans. And therefore on the temperature of the atmosphere.
Upwelling is driven by wind and because wind is not constant – being dependent on changes in pressure – the changes in upwelling quantities might be considerable. Variations in pressure exist.
The most simple calculation is the following. Heat content is measured in ºC/million km3.
After year 1 the total heat content of the surface layer will be 1303,2 minus 18 plus 5 = 1290,2. The temperature of the surface layer (this example excludes the effect of heating by the sun) will be 1290,2 / 72,4 = 17,84 ºC after one year. The surface of the ocean cooled substantially by 0,18 degrees C in only a year.
In case the heating by the sun remains the same every year, a doubling of the upwelling in one year will result in a net cooling of 0,18 ºC of the ocean surface. And, on the other hand, half of the upwelling will cause a warming of the ocean surface by 0,09 ºC in one year.
Of course upwelling can diminish (or increase) during a number of years by smaller percentages as well. A century with a two percent decrease of upwelling results in 2 x 0,18 = 0,36 ºC warming of the ocean surface waters, all other things remaining the same.
The cooling potential of the oceans is huge. Even with minor changes in water flows.
Therefore, all warming of the ocean surface since the Little Ice Age could have been the result of a relatively small diminished upwelling of cold deep ocean water.
To judge ‘warming’, we must first know everything there is to know about cooling.
With regards to commenting: please adhere to the rules known for this site: quote and react, not personal. Factual information in regard to this topic is welcome.
About the author: Wim Röst studied human geography in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The above is his personal view. He is not connected to firms or foundations nor is he funded by government(s)
* Some data on ocean water volume, deep water and bottom water (sinks) production and upwelling of deep water
Source:https://www.nap.edu/read/10136/chapter/18#234
Abrupt Climate Change – National Research Council (2002)
PLATE 4b (…) representation of the global ocean circulation (…) simplified from Ganachaud and Wunsch (2000), as estimated from modern oceanographic data.
From the above figure:
Data in Sv (Sverdrup). One Sverdrup is equivalent to a flow of 1 million m3 in a second. Which makes one cubic kilometre in 1000 seconds. There are 31 556 926 seconds in a year.
Total ocean volume: 1.335 million km3 (1,3 billion km3)
(source NOAA:https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/global/etopo1_ocean_volumes.html )
For comparison:
One Olympic Swimming Pool has a water content of 2.500.000 L = 2.500 m3
One cubic kilometre has a water content of 1.000.000.000 : 2.500 = 400.000 Olympic Swimming Pools
A million cubic kilometers have a total water content of 400.000.000.000 (400 billion) Olympic Swimming Pools.
Total Ocean content is 1.335 million km3 of Ocean Water, 95% of which is cold Deep Water
For me (in the Netherlands) it is nearly half past three in the night: time for some sleep. Thanks to every one for your comments so far. Tomorrow I will try to give some more reactions. And I will read with big interest all new comments.
For someone who wants one more interesting question to think about:
Could (strongly) diminishing upwelling have played a role during the period of superfast rising temperatures at the start of the Holocene? And if so, which weather pattern(s) could have played a role?
Thank you sir for authoring the article, as much more investigation into the oceans’ contribution to climate change is sorely needed.
ja ja
het ijs smelt toch gewoon……
lees maar verder wat er dan gebeurd….
A small change in up-welling, a small change in cloud cover … two Jokers in the deck.
I was under the impression that upswing was caused by Corellis forces which cause the rotating waters to pull away from the coastlines sucking up cold water from below. It can’t be the wind. For instance if it were wind the upwelling in the Pacific would only occur on the Asian side, but California and the west coast of the USA have significant upwelling which pulls up the nutrients creating a particularly rich ocean environment.
Yes, I was thinking Coriolis forces might play a part somewhere, possibly as a feedback, positive or negative. As the currents change speed for whatever reason, the north-south or south north component of the delta v will enhance the Coriolis effect. I don’t mean massive vortexes, just a slightly enhanced cross-cutting shear effect with the waters the current encounters at new latitudes. Put in a highly exaggerated way: if you suddenly transposed a 1km cube chunk of southward-travelling current from 45°N to the equator, it would find itself ploughing westward against the flow at around 140m/sec. If it’s deep, very slow current this effect is in effect zero because it’s sped up eastward by the shear forces over many years. But if there are some currents at say the thermocline or higher that travel north-south/south-north over a matter of days, then this shear effect might have some effect and therefore have some marginal feedback effect as the current speeds or slows. I doubt it’s much but worth keeping in mind I would have thought. I don’t know much about ocean currents, oonly the equatorial flows/El Nino and the deeper 1000-yr cycle. Neither of those would be affected by this phenomenon although the equatorial flows may be affected passively by the shear of north-south flows passing beneath them if such currents exist in the top few hundred metres to the thermocline.
A role is played by the Ekman transport: a wind parallel to the coast causes upwelling. See
Wim, perhaps the best way to ‘measure’ the upwelling is to have sufficient information on sea surface temperatures. Possibly also the Argo Buoys can help, although since the bouys were not cooperating with their masters and we’re not showing the trend in SST they preferred, they may be simply being ignored or abandoned. They don’t like balloons, satellites, temperature or CO2 variety either (the gas wasn’t thoroughly mixed enough and the high anomalies were in ‘untheoretical’ places).
I’m glad when my doctor takes my temperature he doesn’t send it to BEST or GISS for adjustment or I’d be on medication. Fahrenheit’s Cesius’ thermometers were calibrated using freezing and boiling points of water and average human body temperature, yet their thermometer temperatures prior to 1945 were adjusted downwards. I trust they didn’t adjust historical medical records downwards too!
Come to think of it the main thing they don’t like about empirical data of any kind is it compromises the theory and formulae that were handed down to them in sacred tablets.
Karl Marx wrote those sacred tablets. Josef Stalin was his high priest.
The coastal fog for Southern California, caused by upwelling, so prominent in the 70’s and 80’s, is gone. Ditto for the CA Central Valley. I was out in it in the central hills west of Bakersfield one day with 30 ft visibility. Not any more.
Thanks Wim for the post… my take away is that upwelling and downwelling both remove substantial surface heat, but are processes that are poorly measured, both in the present and historically. Your values were averaged over the entire oceanic surface, whereas in reality the mixing is localized (or leveraged) by currents that transport the heat and feed the global climate system. Given that key wind speeds show a significant decrease in intensity, the impact of this interaction really begs a decent data-based analysis.
Sometimes it is interesting contemplating just how shallow those oceans are:
In Google Earth, zoom in and mark a 4 km line on the surface somewhere, then zoom out until you can see the whole globe.
I imagine the actual depth marked is considerably less than the one pixel which we can see at the zoomed out view.
Correct. That os why ocean circulation should be modelled as a thin film of fluid with chaotically intermittent turbulence: a lot os known about such dynamic fluid thin films from other fields such as aerodynamics.
“os” = is;
iPhone keyboard and fat thumb.
To the Cognoscenti gathered here today, Greetings from the Big Mango (BKK). My hypothesis is that the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean are loosely coupled nonlinear oscillator systems. They are driven by solar insolation and are coming into a phase relationship such that the PDO and AMO will be locked into a cold Northern Hemisphere mode for the next eleven thousand years. This will result in the buildup of ice sheets in North America and North Europe. This is to be expected since the Holocene interglacial ended 700 years ago with the advent of the Little Ice Age sequence. We are now in the wild weather time heading down to a deep glacial freeze. The average global temperature has been going down 1 degree C for the last six thousand years.
Regards, Pearce M. Schaudies.
Minister of Future
Oh dear, yet another complex interaction and feedback loop.
As the science become ‘unsettled, with thundery outbursts likely’
Yes, just another demonstration of how far we have to go to understand the Earth’s climate. We aren’t there yet.
But what is settled well and truly is that the observed warming can have zero connection with human activities, right?
“But what is settled well and truly is that the observed warming can have zero connection with human activities, right?”
I wouldn’t say “zero” connection. There may be some human-caused warming of the atmosphere via CO2, but that warming may also be counteracted by negative feedback, and even if it was not, to date, any human-caused warming is so small it is lost in the background noise.
Assuming that *any* of the actual warming of the atmosphere is caused by human CO2 is pure speculation at this point, since we had similar warming from 1910 to 1940 during a time when there was a lot less human-derived CO2 in the atmosphere.
Most skeptics don’t deny that additional CO2 will increase the temperature, if all else stays the same, but all else never stays the same in the atmosphere. Just because additional CO2 is put in the atmosphere does not necessarily mean it is going to heat it up to the point that the actual climate changes because of it. That is the unproven claim of the alarmists, which looks to be diverging farther and farther from reality as time goes along.
the elephant in the room here, is the one that we seldom discuss,….
it is the one you feel when you go down 1 km into a gold mine here:
it gets warmer and warmer as you go deeper…
earth’s hot inner core has apparently been moving, e.g see here
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051209113513.htm
and I am pretty sure that it is been moving because earth’s inner iron core just acts like a magnetic stirrer,
i.e. there is something moving on the bottom of the SS that makes the core of the planets move with it.
perhaps Vukcevic can tell us something on what to expect from the current movement trajectory and what about the movement in the future?
Ant on a football field Henry.
tony says
it is just an ant in a football field
henry says
if that were the case I have no explanation of why there has been little or no warming here, in the SH,
like, for example, where I live,
Here’s something you might find interesting:
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2016/12/19/Scientists-satellites-find-iron-jet-stream-in-Earths-outer-core/5581482173344/?spt=hs&or=sn
Scientists, satellites find iron jet stream in Earth’s outer core
LEEDS, England, Dec. 19 (UPI) — New X-ray images of Earth’s outer core have revealed a unique jet stream-like current of molten iron. The revelatory images were captured by European Space Agency’s Swarm satellites.
“We’ve not only seen this jet stream clearly for the first time, but we understand why it’s there,” Phil Livermore, a researcher at the University of Leeds, said in a news release. “We can explain it as an accelerating band of molten iron circling the North Pole, like the jet stream in the atmosphere.”
Previous measurements of fluctuations in Earth’s magnetic field have offered scientists only a vague understanding of the movement of molten rock thousand miles beneath the planet’s crust. The new images offer clarity and detail.”
end excerpt
TA
thx for comment
‘Scientists, satellites find iron jet stream in Earth’s outer core’
these are things which you have to contemplate when considering an outside to inside source of energy on AC curve of 87 years wavelength and an inside to outside source of energy with as yet unknown origin which [all together] effectively gives us a wavelength of ca. 60 years for difference in SST …
these are sine waves…
go figure…
Hey it’s great news if the human caused catastrophic heat, which was hiding in the ocean depths for about 18 years, is officially resurfacing in the North pole now. They both have an average population of zero per cubic kilometre. What more could we possible wish for? Happy holidays.
That would be great if the effects stayed where there are no people. Unfortunately that’s not how fluids behave.
Arctic lakes’ thermoclines rotate in full twice a year – fresh water being densest at +4 °C. This balances temperature extremes for free. Naturally oceans are more complex, but perhaps they appease the Angry God of Weather similarly?
This topic illustrates how so called ‘climate science’ can tweek a parameter to cover any range of outcomes.
For instanceTrenberth used the Oceans to account for ‘missing heat’ as a reason for the temperature pause in the last 30 years
He speculated that the ‘heat’ can reach the deepest part of the Oceans.
This
Its worth considering the time scales involved if reasonable mixing is happening
http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/29/has-trenberth-found-the-missing-heat/
If the Planet gains more heat than it radiates away then planetary temperatures rise
If the Planet gains same heat as it radiates away then planetary temperatures do not change
If the Planet gains less heat than it radiates away then planetary temperatures fall.
So its the imbalance that causes the temperature change.
Now we are told that on average there is a 0.58w/m^2 gain over the recent past
So use this to find out how long the Oceans would take to increase the Ocean temperatures by one degree Kelvin or Celsius
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget#Earth.27s_energy_imbalance
Scientists calculate that the total mass of the oceans on Earth is 1.35 x 1018 metric tonnes, which is 1/4400 the total mass of the Earth. In other words, while the oceans cover 71% of the Earth’s surface, they only account for 0.02% of our planet’s total mass.1 Dec 2014
Approximately 360 million square kilometers (140 million square miles), or 71 percent, are represented by the oceans and marginal seas.”
one metric ton = 1000Kg
10^9 cubic metres = one metric cubic kilometre
10^6 sq metre = one sq kilometre
Formula used P.A.t = C .M. deltaT
P = imbalance of power/unit area = .58w/m^2 A = surface area of Ocean
t = how long the Oceans would take to increase the Ocean temperatures by one degree K
C = specific heat capacity of water = 4180 J/kgK
M = mass of Ocean water = 1.35 x 1018 metric tonnes
deltaT =temperature change of water =1 K
Plug in the numbers and calculate t = 870 years
Readers can try this easy formula for yourselves
If this is correct then this level of global warming by this method is completely negligible.
So now apparently the Trenberth hypothisis can be ditched whenever convenient and any range of outcomes allowed.
As Popper said any body of knowledge that fails to make testable predictions cannot be science.
yes
there are some indications of a 1000 year cycle, so the computation 870 may well be [more or less] correct
Javier will know more about that
from his own research, back in the 16th century, old willem barentz was convinced there was a NW passage
which indicates to me that it must have existed a number of centuries before
i.e. during the Mideviel Warm Period
he died trying to find it
a NW passage would be good
not bad
for mankind
unfortunately, from my own investigations, I can see that we have passed the peak [of warming] and it will only get cooler now.
Bryan:
“If this is correct then this level of global warming by this method is completely negligible.”
No it’s not.
See my post above.
It’s the classic use of Temperature to obfuscate the fact that it should be heat content that we calculate.
It’s comparing apples with pears.
Actually using 1.4 10^21 Kg as the mass of the oceans, we have ….
Mass(Kg)xSH(J/KG.K)
1.4×10^21×4180 J
585.2 10^22 J
And here we have a graph of OHC….
Notice that the Y-axis has just 35 10^22 J (NB for only ~ the top half of the oceans)
If it were possible (it’s not) to transfer that 1C of ocean heat gained in 870 years instantaneously to the atmosphere it would raise the GMST from 15C to 4,015C !!
Most certainly not “negligible”.
Toneb
My calculation is for the heat content of the Oceans showing that if all the heat imbalance was transferred and retained by the Oceans it would take 870 years.
Trenberth said this accounted for the ‘missing heat’
In fact the real time would be much longer if a more realistic Trenberth conjecture was true.
What is your point in transferring all this heat to the atmosphere?
Have you ever studied Physics?
So either the Trenberth conjecture is untrue or the missing heat gets to and stays in the Ocean.
As I said above
“This topic illustrates how so called ‘climate science’ can tweak a parameter to cover any range of outcomes.”
You cannot have your cake and eat it…..not in Physics anyway.
For the atmosphere
Q/(mc)= deltaT
Q is joules, m is mass in grams, c for the atmosphere is 1J/g
Assume 30E22 joules added to the atmosphere with total mass of 5E21 grams.
300/5 is 60 degrees.
“In fact the real time would be much longer if a more realistic Trenberth conjecture was true.
What is your point in transferring all this heat to the atmosphere?
Have you ever studied Physics?”
Bryan:
To answer your question first:
I worked for the UKMO for 32 years, the last 20 as a Forecaster …. so yes, I studied physics – thanks for asking.
The point, my friend, was to show that your *870 years to heat by 1C* is NOT “negligible”. And that it equates to 585 10^22 Joules of energy.
IOW temperature stored in the 93% of the climate system cannot equate to any significance by using temperature of said store. That is the principle of a storage radiator – just what the Earth’s oceans are.
Which is why I said that the atmosphere would heat to +4000C if it were possible to put that “870 years” of stored heat there adiabatically and instantaneously.
Just like Monckton does when refering to OHC increase by ONLY using 10ths of a degree C – you have too, by using temperature as the metric and not HEAT as in Joules.
I say again the heat going into the Oceans is not “negligible”, and most certainly not 1C of it.
Toneb
The reason I doubted your credentials is that despite your answer you have totally misunderstood my calculation.
I am the one who has used the Oceans vast heat capacity to derive a temperature.
You on the other hand plucked a ludicrous temperature out of thin air.
Since you have not disputed my calculation I must assume you accept it or you are unable to do a simple thermodynamics calculation
Bryan December 29, 2016 at 2:00 am: “or you are unable to do a simple thermodynamics calculation”
WR: Bryan, see above: “With regards to commenting: please adhere to the rules known for this site: quote and react, not personal.”
Wim Röst
Toneb apparently thinks I have ignored the heat capacity and hence internal energy stored in the vast Oceans in favour of some convoluted temperature fixation
“It’s the classic use of Temperature to obfuscate the fact that it should be heat content that we calculate.
It’s comparing apples with pears.”
If he had bothered to read my post he would find I have done the exact opposite to his claim
I have used the heat capacity and internal energy gained over time to obtain a one kelvin rise in temperature and hence the time taken.
This gives the Trenberth conjecture its best conditions to find his ‘missing heat’ given IPCC figures
It turns out to be 870 years or longer if uncertainties are factored in.
One is driven to the point of irritation if Toneb gets the ‘wrong end of the stick’ over several posts in reply.
He seems to accept my calculation but does not appear to understand how I arrived at it!
Bryan December 30, 2016 at 1:22 am
WR: Bryan, “not personal” is asked not to frustrate discussions, not the present one, not the future one. Although it sometimes is difficult to find a neutral formulation, in the end it pays off.
In trying to find the right vision, the correct way of looking at things, all unnecessary statements should be avoided. The final result will be better. Together we know more than each one of us.
Does this not add an additional wrinkle to the theory of the impact of cosmic rays impacting cloud formation? The suggestion that cosmic rays penetration of the atmosphere increases during periods of lower activity on the sun, thereby assisting cloud formation, has an implication for wind currents. Increased wind over the oceans would affect upwelling by assisting the overturning of surface water. Aside from general localized cooling, would there bot also be cooling generated by lower cooler waters absorbing heat from the atmosphere as they are brought to the surface?
I thought the Jerry Brownian scare story for the Antarctic region involved upwelling of warmer waters and melting of the ice shelves underneath. But I do get all of the scare stories mixed up some times, kind of like unregulated wiring in the warehouse district of Oakland.
Happy with the fact that the oceans can modify the atmospheric temperature by changes in upwelling as the near La Niña and recent El Niño showed.
Unhappy with the concept of cooling as put forward. There is no cooling engine.
The sun is what heats the earth and oceans up.
Due to the day night intermittently and rotation currents do form which slow the emission rates of heat at times and speed it up at others.
The upwelling and downwelling that occurs is mainly in the surface layers as far as heat transfer is concerned and is not that impressive in terms of heat per volume when you consider a time frame of a year
the ice [age] trap
more ice= more snow cover => more UV/IR/radiation [that which heats the water] being deflected off from earth
go figure….
angech December 27, 2016 at 8:18 am: “Unhappy with the concept of cooling as put forward. There is no cooling engine.”
WR: Sorry for you, but there is. Double the wind speed and ocean surfaces will cool degrees. Put off the wind and the water cooling (upwelling) will diminish and the surface temperature will rise. But of course, it is possible to deny the existence and the importance of this cooling system.
Or you can use the cooling capacity of the deep waters as in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_water_source_cooling
“The surface layer, directly connected to the atmosphere, is only 100-200 meter thick. Below this layer we find cold to very cold water.”
The author sets everyone on a wrong footing by framing the deep oceans as (very) cold.
This may be true compared to the human body temperature, but for the climate discussion the deep oceans are pretty warm. Below ~1000m their temperature is about 275K, already 20K warmer then the infamous 255K. More relevant, it is some 75K-80K above the average lunar surface temperature.
Given this high start temperature, the sun is only warming the shallow surface layer a bit to explain our pleasant surface temperatures.
(I assume most posters here realise that solar radiation can’t warm deep oceans from above)
The atmosphere just slows the energy loss to space.
Without atmosphere and at 290K we would radiate ~400W/m^2 to space. Sun provides on average ~240W/m^2 so we would cool down rapidly. Fortunately the atmosphere slows the energy loss to ~240W/m^2 so the energy budget can be balanced, without the atmosphere WARMING the surface.
Only question to answer: how did the deep oceans become so warm?
Answer: they came in existance on an earth that still had oceans of magma, so they started probably as steam above a glowing hot surface. After cooling down and becoming liquid water they maintained their temperature by the addition of geothermal heat.
The solar heated surface works as a effective barrier preventing bottom warmed water from reaching the surface. So the small geothermal flux (~100 mW/m^2) plus other geothermal energy sources maintain the DEEP ocean temperatures.
I posted the above ideas on another site:
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/ben-wouters-influence-of-geothermal-heat-on-past-and-present-climate/
and
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/ben-wouters-geothermal-flux-and-the-deep-oceans/
Ben Wouters December 27, 2016 at 8:27 am (I assume most posters here realise that solar radiation can’t warm deep oceans from above)
WR: I agree that there is not much thermal conductivity by water, but there is. The thermal conductivity of water is 0.58. Source: http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/thermalP/Lesson-1/Rates-of-Heat-Transfer
In the hundreds or even a thousand years that the deep water is below, it will be warmed a bit and become a bit less dense than new ‘deep water’. It just needs to expand that very little bit to float on the denser water.
Obviously water conducts. No one will clain otherwise. The other transport mode, convection, works against topdown conduction and makes it impossible for solar heated surface layer water to have much influence below ~200m. After sunset the surface cools, and the now warmer water below convects/conducts its energy upwards.
Same for seasonal warming. In spring and summer the mixed layer warms up, but in autumn and winter the surface cools again and the ‘stored’ energy lower in the mixed layer is released at the surface again. No warming of the deep oceans.
http://www.oc.nps.edu/nom/day1/annual_cycle.gif
“In the hundreds or even a thousand years that the deep water is below, it will be warmed a bit and become a bit less dense than new ‘deep water’. It just needs to expand that very little bit to float on the denser water.”
Obviously, but the warming comes from the oceans BOTTOM, the geothermal flux (~100 mW/m^2), hot vents, magma erupting etc.etc.
As long as downwelling polar water like the Antarctic Bottom Water is crawling over the ocean bottom to the deepest parts of the ocean it warms up slowly.
Without this warming the thermohaline circulation would come to a halt once the deep oceans are filled with the same cold, dense water.
Ben Wouters December 28, 2016 at 12:43 pm
‘After sunset the surface cools, and the now warmer water below convects/conducts its energy upwards.’
WR: The daily or seasonally heated water down cannot raise when its density is higher than the (warmer) water above. But it can conduct its heat in every (!) direction. In that way it will warm (slowly) the water downwards. Some water stays down a thousand years, so there is enough time to get heated a bit.
There is heating from below, and it plays a role which is as far as I know not well quantified for the oceans as a whole. And neither the effects. One of those ‘ocean things’ we don’t know much about. Sea floors are spreading and new crusts are thin so there must be a relative high conductivity at larger surfaces. A lot of lava flows yearly at the spreading parts. And the spreading ridges are huge, an 80.000 km in total.
@Wim Röst December 28, 2016 at 3:59 pm
Some basics:
– solar energy warms mostly the upper 10 m of water DIRECTLY. The rest is just re-distribution of this thermal energy.
– the oceans can only LOOSE energy at the surface (think microns / millimeters) by radiation, conduction and evaporation.
Your upwelling of cold water is just a re-distribution of thermal energy, no cooling.
The cold water could surface because wind blew warmer surface water to another place.
In the graph above the apr profile is the coolest one and almost isothermal down to ~120 m.
After a summer of warming in august we see most warming has occurred in the upper ~50 m.
Now the cooling begins. At the surface more energy is lost than the sun provides in the upper 10 m,
so now warmer water from below transfers thermal energy towards the surface.
In october the surface has cooled some 2 degrees, but the layer between ~30 m and ~60 m has become warmer. Most probably by mixing due waves, tides etc., but if you want to believe it is conduction, fine.
In dec same thing, surface cooled, layer between ~60 -110 m became warmer.
Finally in apr all energy from the preceding year has been lost to the atmosphere, and the cycle starts all over again.
No energy left for warming below ~200 m.
So yes, the sun warms the mixed surface layer of the oceans, but no, the sun does NOT warm the oceans below.
@Wim Röst December 28, 2016 at 3:59 pm
“There is heating from below, and it plays a role which is as far as I know not well quantified for the oceans as a whole. ”
The 100 mW/m^2 geothermal flux is widely accepted. This means that every m^2 of ocean floor warms the water sitting on it 24/7. This way the average ocean column gets 1K warmer every 5000
~years, unless downwelling water cools the oceans.
If you’re looking for the mechanism that explains the end of glacials or snowball earth situations,
no need to look further.
Since the oceans have been cooling down some 15-20K over the last 85 million years a lot of energy has been transferred into the deep ocean AND IS LOST AGAIN, since they have been cooling down.
Apart from the flux large magma eruptions have taken place. I’ve shown a total of ~140 million km^3, roughly 10% of the total ocean volume.
Assuming magma being 1000K warmer then deep ocean water and heat capacity of water being 4 times that of magma, this amount of magma has the capacity to warm all ocean water 25K.
Small wonder the oceans warmed so much during that time.
Ben Wouters December 30, 2016 at 6:10 am
“Your upwelling of cold water is just a re-distribution of thermal energy, no cooling.”
WR: when the re-distribution of thermal energy cools the surface, it is cooling the surface. It is of the utmost importance for the temperature of the atmosphere. When you mean upwelling water doesn’t cool the Earth as a whole, you miss the essence of the article. The article is about cooling the ocean surface by upwelling water.
“if you want to believe it is conduction, fine”
WR: see above: ‘With regards to commenting: please adhere to the rules known for this site: quote and react, not personal.’
Facts and evidence are welcome, quotes also but leave all other things out of your comments.
Ben Wouters December 30, 2016 at 6:24 am
“The 100 mW/m^2 geothermal flux is widely accepted.”
WR: Some ocean bottoms have thin earth crusts (near the mid oceanic ridges for example) and can conduct more heat upwards, other bottoms have thick earth crusts and a lower conduction. Ocean bottoms and their subsurface are not well explored as far as I know. The number 100 mW/m^2 seems a guess to me. If this number is widely accepted in science: please provide the scientific links where the number is calculated. The same for “This way the average ocean column gets 1K warmer every 5000 years”
essentially,
correct me if I am wrong,
the discussion here is about trying to find out how much warming [currently] occurs from the bottom up – never mind the differences of crust [I think it would be possible to find an average value for that?]
If that is the problem,
one would have to go down [into mines] at intervals of 500m or 1km and measure T
and convert deltaT to some form of W/m2 as heat from bottom to top
it does not look like a big problem, but, if nobody ever did it,
it is an interesting problem to look at,
for people like you and me
Wim Röst December 30, 2016 at 7:24 am
“When you mean upwelling water doesn’t cool the Earth as a whole, you miss the essence of the article.”
The article is about cooling the ocean surface by upwelling water.”
Before cooler water from below can surface, first the wind has to move warmer water to someplace else.
Remains to be seen whether this process as a whole cools the surface.
In places where cooler water has been upwelling, the surface will now cool less then before:
less evaporation, less radiation and less conduction to the atmosphere.
Afaik the upwelling you talk about is a process that is restricted to the upper ~300 m.
No involvement of the deep oceans.
We’ve just seen probably the biggest event related to upwelling of cooler water, El Nino / La Nina.
‘With regards to commenting: please adhere to the rules known for this site: quote and react, not personal.’
Your point is?
I’m not interested in a discussion about the mechanism that transports heat energy down as shown in the graphs. If you want to argue it’s all conduction, fine. As long as it is clear that all accumulated heat energy is released at the surface again, no warming down to the deep oceans.
Relevant publication: http://www.terrapub.co.jp/journals/JO/pdf/6305/63050721.pdf
@Wim Röst December 30, 2016 at 7:26 am
“If this number is widely accepted in science: please provide the scientific links where the number is calculated.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/93RG01249/abstract
http://authors.library.caltech.edu/25018/13/TOE12.pdf
Also try https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradient#Heat_flow
“The same for “This way the average ocean column gets 1K warmer every 5000 years””
Is actually a simple calculation.(excluding errors in counting the number of digits 😉 )
Average ocean depth 3700 m.
Assuming density 1000 kg/m^3.
Average column has 3,7 x 10^6 kg water.
Assuming specific heat is ~4200 J/kg/K.it takes 1,554 x 10^10 J to warm the entire column 1K.
Warming 0,1 J/s so it takes 1,554 x 10^11 seconds to warm the entire column 1K.
Is roughly 5000 year.
@Henry December 30, 2016 at 8:18 am
“If that is the problem, one would have to go down [into mines] at intervals of 500m or 1km and measure T
and convert deltaT to some form of W/m2 as heat from bottom to top”
Fortunately that work has been done already 😉
I understand they use boreholes to measure the relevant data.
See my links just 1 or 2 replies up.
Wim,
If you would like a way of heating the ocean surface quickly then look at:
A surface smoothed by light oil pollution would have lower albedo, would produce fewer salt aerosols and thus would be screened by less low level cloud, would have less mixing of nutrient rich waters and thus different phytoplankton populations… etc, etc.
Quantifying the effect is not easy, not least because I don’t think anyone has tried a practical experiment. One cannot help but speculate what would happen if coastal erosion broke into a major oilfield — would the result be a major temperature rise lasting years? Would it look like the PETM?
JF
Fascinating topic. It seems the surface temperature of the earth is probably less than what is commonly stated (15 centigrade). This could mean that the warming due to the so called “greenhouse effect” is overestimated – meaning that the model parameters for carbon dioxide can be adjusted downward. Does anyone know if models derive more from properties determined in a laboratory or from globally averaged estimates? Put another way, does boltzmann’s theoretical surface temperature subtracted from observed temperature influence how those arrow diagrams that we’ve all seen are constructed?
A basic dynamical misconception about classic upwelling–which is restricted to relatively narrow coastal strips–needs to be eradicated in this discussion. It is not driven by buoyancy forces, but by hydrostatic forces restoring the surface level from below, after the wind (and Coriolis effect) has driven the warmer surface layer off the adjacent coastal waters onto the wider ocean offshore.
What would be the result if we divide annual AGW by Total Heat Content of the planet?
And, total Holocene AGW, ditto, to get the aggregate addition (assuming constant planetary Total Heat Content.)
It seems to me the result will be illuminating one way or another, and give a badly needed sense of perspective in order to counter the Alarmist & media-driven hysteria.
(My back of matchbox calculations indicate it to be equivalent to lighting a match in the bottom of a vast, cold cavern so as to get warm!)
since AGW = 0
the result = 0
AGW *ISN’T* zero. Take, for example, all the energy we have used since the Industrial Revolution, and the heat needed to fuel that energy. All of which ends up as AGW!
While not zero, I suspect it’s insignificant to other global energy fluxes at work ….. more on this please, anyone? I want to put figures to my argument.
Ross
AGW *ISN’T* zero. Take, for example, all the energy we have used since the Industrial Revolution, and the heat needed to fuel that energy. All of which ends up as AGW!
henry says
when I looked at the problem, I found a cooling trend in the town that I live in, when in fact a lot more fossil fuels were burned overhead in same town over the last 40 years or so.
See results for Pretoria
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/12/26/warming-by-less-upwelling-of-cold-ocean-water/#comment-2383366
After looking more around me, as proven in the above link, I then decided to look at the problem more globally, taking a random sample on a specific sampling procedure
i.e.
no. of stations SH = no. of stations NH
balanced to zero latitude
looking at the rate of change in K/annum means we don’t have to worry about the choice of longitude: do you know why?
70/30 @sea/inland
I came to this end result here:
Now, AGW is supposed to affect T min pushing up T mean:
it is not happening?
there is no room for AGW in my equation.
Any man made warming is apparently sluiced away into the heavens?
My conclusion: it is zero, or very close to zero….
Tks, Henry.
Struggling to get my head round this …..
Yr graph appears to indicate a slowing in (the increasing rate) of heating from the peak, 32 years ago, passing into -ve territory 20 years ago, continuing to today with a steadiily increasing rate of cooling.
Did I get this right?
It wd be interesting to superimpose the graph of gross world energy production (as a proxy for anthropogenic global heat production). Assuming this is ever-upwards with time, it wd starkly serve to enhance your point that “Any man made warming is apparently sluiced away into the heavens?”
.
Ross
did I get this right?
henry says
yes!
yes I have proof from numerous proxies showing that we already started the decline in 1995
but it is not by that much; with such small changes as indicated, you can still fool the big population to believe whatever it is they are eager to believe. Must say that I started my investigation because I felt a bit guilty about driving a big double cab truck, dogs and all in the back…
Hi Henry:
With respect ….
I think yr excellent graph wd be ‘bettter on the eye’, and resonate more quickly & intuitively if the x-axis is reversed, so that it’s easier to see how the cooling rate is increasing as we move FORWARD in time!
Its beauty wd then lie in the fact that it’s GOING THE WRONG WAY COMPARED WITH WHAT THE ALARMISTS PRESENT!!!!
Another point: for reasons which are not immed’ly clear, you use min. temps. do you get the same results if you use the max. temps? Means? Averages perhaps?
Regards,
ross
Hi Ross
thx for the answer
I am sure you can turn the graph around, if you wanted to/ be my guest. Note that the graph was made early in 2015.
I also know that they do regard me as a bit of an outlier here, or dimwit, or whatever,
and I don’t care much about that,….I am just leaving a trail for those who are genuinely interested in the science of AGW and they could try to repeat my testing, if they truly wanted to ascertain the truth for themselves.
I have a natural log equation for the decline in Tmax of same 54 stations from 1973 with Rsquare equal to 0.964 which I think is still awesome.
here was my first result on T max in a place in Alaska
http://oi60.tinypic.com/2d7ja79.jpg
T mean is a bit more tricky. The decline has an R square equal to 0.8 which is not too great by my standards, although I think it would still pass a simple official stats test.
Truth is, there are simply too many factors that influence T mean to give a prediction with 95% certainty/
like we have [here]
#
ocean water mixing from the bottom up [lunar influence??]
movement of earth’s inner core
mixing of salty water due to weather [wind]
irradiation [various solar cycles both on short and longer terms]
composition TOA
etc.
Hi Wim. Towards the end of your post you said …
Therefore, all warming of the ocean surface since the Little Ice Age could have been the result of a relatively small diminished upwelling of cold deep ocean water.
So, at the beginning of the little Ice Age sequence of solar minimums about the year 1300 the obliquity was falling past 23.5 degrees. I would claim this to be the marker for the end of the Holocene interglacial as well. Today it is 23.4 something. What that would imply is the northern hemisphere insolation was falling also. Particularly the ultraviolet energy in the Solar Spectrum, which only penetrates the top 50 meters of ocean, is almost 0. So we would expect the ocean surface to be cooler than normal for several hundred years during the quiet sun, along with reduced winds. This could explain the long duration of the little ice age. From records I’ve seen the temperature at that time globally went down about 1/2 degree centigrade. Although local weather conditions in North America and North Europe had quite severe winters and cool summers also, with 8 degree variations from normal.
As the sun became active again it started to warm the ocean surface more again.
The question I would pose is ‘ would
there be a threshold value for increasing wind speed to initiate upwelling?’
Regards, Pearce M. Schaudies.
Minister of Future
x
A couple of papers by Keeling and Worf should have been cited here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/8/3814.long
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/16/8321.full.pdf
pearce m. schaudies December 27, 2016 at 7:49 pm ‘would there be a threshold value for increasing wind speed to initiate upwelling?’
Hello Pearce, good question within the right context too. Important for the answer is the following sentence: “The wind exerts a force or stress on the ocean surface, proportional to the square of the wind speed.” Source: http://eesc.columbia.edu/courses/ees/climate/lectures/o_circ.html
The consequence is, that any (!) increase in wind speed will have a non linear effect on upwelling. In my own words: two times more wind, four times more upwelling force = four times more cooling by upwelling (potentially). Or, 10% more wind speed gives a 21% more windstress on the ocean. Enough to result in an upwelling that will have a decisive impact on the temperature of the oceans and so of the Earth. The same for a ten percent diminishing wind speed [on elementary places]. It will result in a warming like we have seen twice last century: in the thirties and around sixty years later.
This means, that changing weather (!) patterns are back on nr. 1. Weather patterns decide over the future climate. It is not ‘climate theories’ that decide over future weather. It is the physics of the Earth that decide and – so far – are badly understood, if only because we cannot quantify all the forces that are of decisive importance. I suppose ‘upwelling cold ocean waters’ was a such a ‘missing link’. The oceans are our temperature stabilizing factor – and we don’t know the oceans and their behaviour to the extent that we should know them to understand fully ‘how’ they are stabilizing.
Your post brought me to an interesting thought about the behaviour of the Earth and the influence of the Universe which is perhaps more direct than we thought. I will think about it and when I wake up tomorrow and I will be as positive about that thought as I am now, I will try to work it out for a new post. But first I will have to think and read a bit around it.
Thanks for your question Pearce!
Hi Wim. Thanks for your answer. Also the very interesting ocean post! The square force law reminded me, the heat loss from flat surface goes up as v- cubed. Looking forward to your next post.
Regards, Pearce M. Schaudies.
Minister of Future