Posted on July 21, 2019 by curryja
by Judith Curry
“The atmosphere bias of climate science makes it impossible for them to see geological forces and therefore, impossible for them to understand the earth’s climate.” – Thongchai
When conducting the literature survey for my report on sea level rise [link; see section 4.2], I became intrigued by under-ocean heat sources.
“Wunsch (2018) identified lower bounds on uncertainties in ocean temperature trends for the period 1994-2013. The trend in integrated ocean temperature was estimated by Wunsch to be 0.011 ± 0.001 oC/decade (note: this rate of warming is much less than the surface warming, owing to the large volume of ocean water). This corresponds to a 20- year average ocean heating rate of 0.48 ±0.1 W/m2 of which 0.1 W/m2 arises from the geothermal forcing. I have rarely seen geothermal forcing (e.g. underwater volcanoes) mentioned as a source of ocean warming – the numbers cited by Wunsch reflect nearly a 20% contribution by geothermal forcing to overall global ocean warming over the past two decades.”
Makes me wonder how much of the TOA radiative energy imbalance calculated from ocean heat content reflects seafloor geothermal heat fluxes?
Climate modelers are beginning to pay attention to seafloor geothermal fluxes. The first such study that I’ve spotted is Adcroft et al. (2012), using a uniform geothermal heat flux of 50 mW/m2 through the sea floor. They found substantial changes in deep circulation to this heat flux.
The GFDL ESM2 Global Coupled Climate-Carbon Earth System Model (2012) [link] states that it incorporates ocean geothermal heat flux following Adcroft et al. I don’t know if this is what the current (CMIP6) version of ESM2 uses.
The most interesting analysis that I’ve spotted on this is Downes et al. (2016) The transient response of Southern Ocean Circulation to Geothermal Heating in a Global Climate Model [link]
Abstract. Model and observational studies have concluded that geothermal heating significantly alters the global overturning circulation and the properties of the widely distributed Antarctic Bottom Water. Here two distinct geothermal heat flux datasets are tested under different experimental designs in a fully coupled model that mimics the control run of a typical Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) climate model. The regional analysis herein reveals that bottom temperature and transport changes, due to the inclusion of geothermal heating, are propagated throughout the water column, most prominently in the Southern Ocean, with the background density structure and major circulation pathways acting as drivers of these changes. While geothermal heating enhances Southern Ocean abyssal overturning circulation by 20%–50%, upwelling of warmer deep waters and cooling of upper ocean waters within the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) region decrease its transport by 3–5 Sv (1 Sv = 106 m3 s−1). The transient responses in regional bottom temperature increases exceed 0.1°C. The large-scale features that are shown to transport anomalies far from their geothermal source all exist in the Southern Ocean. Such features include steeply sloping isopycnals, weak abyssal stratification, voluminous southward flowing deep waters and exported bottom waters, the ACC, and the polar gyres. Recently the Southern Ocean has been identified as a prime region for deep ocean warming; geothermal heating should be included in climate models to ensure accurate representation of these abyssal temperature changes.
This is by no means an exhaustive literature survey on incorporation of seafloor geothermal heat flux into ocean models, but I suspect that the GFDL model is the most advanced one in this regard.
The motivation for this particular thread is an email that I received today, and also some tweets I spotted.
The Miocene
Why the Miocene? This blurb from the current AGU Call for Abstracts provides a good summary:
“The Miocene (23 to 5.3 mya) is a crucial, dynamical interval in Earth’s history that provides unparalleled insights into the functioning of greenhouse climates. At times during the Miocene, Antarctic ice volume was half modern, the Arctic Ocean was ice-free in winter, and extratropical temperatures nearly as warm as in the Eocene. This is an enigma, because the continental configurations and ocean circulation were much closer to modern than in the Paleogene, and atmospheric pCO2 was in the 300-600 ppm range. Taken at face value, this implies either a system highly sensitive to greenhouse gas forcing or the presence of still unexplained forcings and feedbacks.”
A blog post by Thongchai suggests that the mid Miocene warming is caused by solid Earth dynamics [link].
“The general consensus in the bibliography below seems to be that the Mid Miocene warming event is best explained in terms of deep ocean circulation or the so called “oceanographic control of Miocene climate“. Many of these authors who are still in paleo climate research now tend to soft pedal these anomalies and discrepancies in public discourse to present the Mid Miocene warming in terms of the CO2 greenhouse effect although their new improved assessment appears to contradict what they had written twenty or more years ago. In many of the works below, particularly the later papers, it appears that the authors are struggling to relate grossly anomalous situations to the greenhouse effect of atmospheric CO2.”
The list of references is interesting; this is a provocative hypothesis that has been inadequately investigated.
Modern climate
With regards to the impact of geothermal ocean warming, Ron Clutz has a good post summarizing the published literature on this. Some excerpts:
“Little attention is paid to geothermal heat fluxes warming the ocean from below, mostly because of limited observations and weak understanding about the timing and extent of eruptions.”
“There appear to be three major issues around heating of the ocean from below through the seafloor:
1. Is geothermal energy powerful enough to make a difference upon the vast ocean heat capacity?
2. If so, Is geothermal energy variable enough to create temperature differentials?
3. Most of the ocean floor is unexplored, so how much can we generalize from the few places we have studied?”
“Without geothermal heat fluxes, the temperatures of the abyssal ocean would be up to 0.5 C lower than observed, deep stratification would be reinforced by about 25%, and the strength of the abyssal circulation would decrease by between 25% and 50%, substantially altering the ability of the deep ocean to transport and store not only heat but also carbon and other climatically important tracers . It has been hypothesised that interactions between the ocean circulation and geothermal heating are responsible for abrupt climatic changes during the last glacial cycle.”
“Geothermal heating contributes to an overall warming of bottom waters by about 0.4◦C, decreasing the stability of the water column and enhancing the formation rates of North Atlantic Deep Water and Antarctic Bottom Water by 1.5 Sv (10% ) and 3 Sv (33% ), respectively. Increased influx of Antarctic Bottom Water leads to a radiocarbon enrichment of Pacific Ocean waters, increasing ∆14C values in the deep North Pacific from -269◦/◦◦when geothermal heating is ignored in the model, to -242◦/◦◦when geothermal heating is included. A stronger and deeper Atlantic meridional overturning cell causes warming of the North Atlantic deep western boundary current by up to 1.5◦C,”
Lots of interesting material and references in Ron’s blog post.
A series of papers on mid-ocean spreading zone seismic activity and global temperatures have been published by Arthur Viterito [link]. As per personal communication with AV, the seismic data he used is from IRIS Wilber 3 [link]. Note the jump in the late 1990’s.
JC reflections
Our understanding of the link between sea floor geothermal heat flux and climate seems to be in its infancy
There seems to be a sufficient number of publications and observational evidence that lend credence to a link; the issue is the magnitude of the effect. Dismissing such an effect as unimportant given our current state of understanding is misguided.
Since this is a topic that I haven’t spent a lot of time investigating, I look forward to insights and references from the comments.
Antarctic ice sheets grew after the opening of deep oceanic channels between Antarctic and South America and Australia around the Eocene-Oligocene boundary. But then in the Late Oligocene and Mid-Miocene, Drake Passage shoaled due to tectionic changes between South America and Antarctica. This led to ice sheet retreat.
Among papers on this geologic discovery:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223431928_The_tectonic_history_of_Drake_Passage_and_its_possible_impacts_on_global_climate
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2005GC001224
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/42/4/367/131588/drake-passage-and-the-scotia-arc-a-tortuous-space
The reason why geothermal heating of the ocean floor is so important, is the nature of oceanic crust (OC), which is only about 8 km thick. In comparison, the continental crust (CC) is up to 200 km thick. The heat from the upper mantle (UM) is, therefore continually ‘felt’ through most of the OC. This can be seen on the many heatflow measurements made (see documentation at the brilliant website: http://www.iodp.org).
More and more evidence of abrupt and short-duration heatplumes issuing from the rift zone in the ocean crust, the mid-ocean ridge system, including the Mid Atlantic Ridge suggests that this is where much heat can issue over time and in certain periods. The thin OC crust covers about 60% of the Earth’s surface and must be important when it comes to heat-balance. Remember also that the UM temperature is about 1200 degrees C.
Thanks for the link.
And it is the cold water flowing off this same icecap that cooled the ocean bottom to its present 4 degrees celsius. It takes a lot of geothermal energy to heat that up.
Any geothermal heating would be visible in the temperature gradient like the gold mines in south africa.
So I am not buying the geothermal heating meme of the oceans.
Show me the observations.
@Hans
Surely, you must accept that 70% of the world is ocean and that there are probably more volcanoes under the sea bed than on land. The activity of volcanoes under the ocean is most probably just as variable as those of volcanoes observed on land?’
In the case of South Africa, I noticed a marked decrease in Tmin, whereas Tmean stayed the same over the past 40 years.
For results, see here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/h7944heslj7gg7q/summary%20of%20climate%20change%20south%20africa.xlsx?dl=0
There is also a marked decrease in arctic pole ice and increase in Tmin in the NH. To explain this, it makes sense [for me] to think that the elephant in the room has been moving, as evident from the shift in the magnetic north pole. This could trigger some unexpected eruptions of volcanoes along the way? In fact, I expect some more particular earth quake activity as well, on the USA/Canada west coast.
While I no longer can find the reference several years ago there was a brief announcement of a study being done on five thermal vents off the SW tip of South America. It was estimated that the flow from just those vents was greater than the flow of the Amazon at flood. Now expand that to the entire Mid-Ocean Ridge the largest geological formation on Earth.
Hans Erren July 22, 2019 at 10:25 pm
How then do you propose that our oceans got so hot?
Presently ~275K for the deep oceans, in the Cretaceous possibly 290K or warmer.
Warming at the surface does not reach below ~400m due to the seasonal nature of this warming.
Energy conducted down will come back to the surface in the cold season.
Without geothermal warming of the AABW moving north over the ocean floor, the next AABW flux would just stack on top of the previous one. With the warming of the 100 mW/m^2 flux, the first AABW flux is now less dense and will be replaced by the next flux, eventually driving ocean floor heated water to the surface back near Antarctica, where it will cool and start a new cycle.
Edwin, here we go:
https://www.google.com/search?q=study+five+thermal+vents+off+the+SW+tip+of+South+America.&oq=study++five+thermal+vents+off+the+SW+tip+of+South+America.&aqs=chrome.
There is another potential “geologic” source of ocean and atmosphere warming. It is the varying geomagnetic field. In 2016, three students from Laurentian University in Sudbury, Canada, published a paper in International Journal of Geosciences, in which they demonstrated that the energy lost by the diminishing geomagnetic field has been equal to the energy required to warm the ocean and the atmosphere, as observed. The mechanism is simple: the varying geomagnetic field induces electric currents in the ocean and in the atmosphere that dissipate producing heat. For more on this see [1].
[1] https://doi.org/10.4236/ijg.2016.71007
Is this similar to induction heating? Back in my research days at Battelle, we were experimenting with induction heating to process certain types of transuranic waste. I wasn’t the expert on induction but relied on those who were.
Yes, it is the same thing: induction heating.
It’s amazing how these stealth-like energy-transfer mechanisms can influence earths temperature on a global scale.
Edwin “energy lost by the diminishing geomagnetic field has been equal to the energy required to warm the ocean and the atmosphere, as observed”.
Would be a 0 sum game: either a magnetic field works as a “dynamo” producing warmth by accelerating electrons or existing energie no longer used for holding up the magnetic field is “used / available” directly as energie.
Not sure whether I am repeating myself here; as I thought I had already commented on this. Anyhow here it is :
Delighted that attention is now being given to this subject. Very important IMO.
thanks Judith
If we all throw our computers out of the window we can think more clearly.
Thermodynamic Law dictates that ALL energy use results in the generation of waste heat which TENDS to warm the planet.
On the other side of the equation, if we are looking for a balance we have the scientific behaviour of water which reacts against an increase in temperature from whatever cause, and thus TENDS to cool the planet.
The science also tells us that the resulting equilibrium temperature is primarily determined by gravity.
In practical terms nature hunts about this equilibrium as these two TENDENCIES vie with each other with leads and lags.
It is remarkable that the Earth’s temperature has been so historically stable varying by little more than +/- 1.5% over the years. (Kelvin base).
Unfortunately for we humans most of the time the temperature is below what we would like with occasional spikes during the interglacial periods, as of now.
IMO this is due to water, whilst being good at controlling temperature increase is useless when it gets cold and tends to exacerbate the problem.
My regards,
Alasdair.
PS: (additional) I sometimes wonder whether El Niño has its roots in this geothermal energy. The south pacific is riddled with potential sources.
If you take the range of the last 550 myears as 280K – 300K, discarding the occasional blip, then the average is 290K +/- 3.4%. Still impressive stability for a “chaotic dynamic non-linear system”. As you point out, water dynamics are a good governor on the up side but not on the down side.
Now we are left with the question of why, when snowball earth occurs, does the temperature reverse instead of continuing to the Stefan-Boltzmann equilibrium of 255K.
“I sometimes wonder whether El Niño has its roots in this geothermal energy.” I’d bet the root cause of ENSO is what drives our climate. Seems if the source was geothermal, we’d have seen that already? I hope I live long enough to see real science come back to climate studies.
The large ‘Carnegie Ridge’, not far off The Galapagos Isles, has earlier been suggested to be one of the culprits for triggering El Nino events. The theory is that ‘megaplumes’ issue from portions of this submerged volcanically active ridge. The warm water in these megaplumes drift westward and affect the surface layers only when the deep water slowly manages to rise upwards further west. The idea is that responsible hydrothermal activity on the Carnegia Ridge, is periodic, although not regular, e.g., every third to seven years…. Thus, it may explain why it is so difficult, or impossible, to predict El Nino events. Researhers are looking at the wrong parameters…
Alasdair, “PS: (additional) I sometimes wonder whether El Niño has its roots in this geothermal energy. The south pacific is riddled with potential sources.”
__________________________________________________
Think We can live well with the explanation that the Pacific ocean is rolling daily 6 years long from east to west under the sun –
and in the 7. year the stored energy from the sun is released from top ocean layer to the atmosphere.
Perhaps we can improve the [ Stefan–Boltzmann law ] by adding a term indicating whether the radiating body is itself on fire.
Perhaps there’s some hope in Climate Science if they’re starting to admit what we don’t know …
“Climate modelers are beginning to pay attention …”
“Our understanding of the link between sea floor geothermal heat flux and climate seems to be in its infancy”
Regrettably, any statement like “Climate modelers are beginning to pay attention …” is NEVER taken to mean that there is something the modellers don’t understand. Their entire modus operandi is based on controlling the dialogue so that only their interpretation of a situation is ever heard or seen. If they don’t have one, then there isn’t one until they say so.
The science is settled. Statements like “Our understanding of xxx is in its infancy” don’t affect that fact. How can that be? Well, no-one can prove that xxx has any effect because our understanding is in its infancy, so the models have to leave it out. That argument is still burning in my memory after Andy Pitman used it many years ago. I don’t know whether Andy has changed since then, but the climate science industry as a whole has not.
what does Sv mean?
In oceanography, a sverdrup (symbol: Sv) is a non-SI unit of flow, with 1 Sv equal to 1,000,000 cubic metres per second (264,000,000 USgal/s); it is equivalent to the SI derived unit cubic hectometer per
second (symbol: hm³/s or hm³⋅s⁻¹).
It’s named after oceanographer Harald Sverdrup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Sverdrup_(oceanographer)
The geothermal heat flux they use is too low. The number keeps rising as more data is obtained, but the estimate currently stands at 0.6 W/m-2, not 0.48.
They estimate that the abyssal waters are only 0.5 degrees warmer than they would be without geothermal heat? So the greenhouse effect of the atmosphere is +33 C but the greenhouse effect of the oceans is only 0.5, lol okay. When the earth sciences can rid themselves of CO2 hysteria then they can get back to real research. Someday someone may even conclude that geothermal fluxes play a major role in Earth climate.
Marine chemistry correlates to global hot house/ice house conditions, marine chemistry appears to be controlled by sea floor spreading rates and ridge length, and this has nothing to do with CO2.
“Long-term changes in seafloor spreading rates, global sea level, and “greenhouse” versus“icehouse” conditions are synchronous during the Phanerozoic because they are all driven by plate tectonics, as pointed out in 1982 (16 )”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11662190_Oscillations_in_Phanerozoic_Seawater_Chemistry_Evidence_from_Fluid_Inclusions
0.5 degrees in the abyssal ocean is a lot and will strongly affect circulation. Water has very high heat capacity.
Abyssal water is about 4 C, receives no sunlight, and the only currents flowing into them are from polar waters which are around -2 to -3 C. Current geothermal heating of the abyss is thus probably an order of magnitude larger than their 0.5 estimate.
The heat flux from the surface into the oceans is at least 0.6 W/m per SECOND (probably higher). This heat takes tens of thousands of years to leave the oceans, thus geothermal heat is far more important than climastrologists let on.
Say what! That sure upsets some apple carts.
only if it is correct. Which it isn’t. It would appear to be out by about 3 orders of magnitude.
Wikipedia for instance says that the geothermal flux is “0.087 watt/square meter on average (0.03 percent of solar power absorbed by the Earth”. The link you mention links to a paper
that gives the result in cal/s and the simplest explanation is that the blog author got confused between a calorie (lower case ‘c’) and a Calorie (upper case) which is 1000 times larger.
My understanding is that the heat flux from the interior is still very poorly understood, both under the ocean and on land. Some areas have very high fluxes (think of an active volcano) and the ‘average’ flux is not well quantified, nor are the maximum fluxes. The most important thing is that we have no idea how much the flux varies over time both long and short term.
Svensmark I think suggested that the sun’s influence on the galactic cosmic rays affects the rate of radioactive decay in the core, and also our solar system’s movement through galactic space means we get long term changes in neutron fluxes too.
I have always been puzzled that all the official diagrams of the energy balance never show the inherent heat flux from our hot interior, and I am certain none of the ‘models’ include geothermal heat sources.
I would not trust that wikipedia value at all at this point in time…
Dave,
The claim that “commie bob” made that the energy flux from radioactive decay is half
of the amount that the earth emits to space is clearly false. The earth’s surface receives a
solar flux of about 1000 W/m^2 and due to conservation of energy the earth must emit the
same amount (minus a small fraction of a W/m^2 since the globe is warming). Thus commie bob’s claim is equivalent to the statement that there is a heat flux of 500 W/m^2 coming from the ground 24 hours a day at every point on the globe, i.e. right where you are standing or sitting right now. This is a large heat flux that you could easily detect with your bare feet
just by standing on the ground (which would be warm all year round even at the poles).
In addition if you look at the blog post that commie bob links to it links to the article
“Oceans and continents: Similarities and differences in the mechanisms of heat loss” published in
1981 which gives the total heat flux from radiative decay in cal/s. Converting this to
W/m^2 gives a value that is very similar to the value in Wikipedia and is about a factor
1000 smaller than what the blog author claims. Hence my suggestion that they made a mistake
in converting from calories to joules by using food Calories rather than actual calories.
No. I was noting the fantastical claim made by someone else.
I would also observe that you are not a computer programmer and are not familiar with camel case. You also are not particularly careful and maybe not able to deal with anything that doesn’t conform to the way you think it should be.
Izaak
what previous name did you use here?
Commie Bob,
why repeat a “fantastical claim” when a simple back of the envelope
calculation shows it is out by several orders of magnitude. And there is
an obvious cause of the error — the difference between Calories (capital
C) and calories (small c) which explains the entire error.
The wonderful thing about Wikipedia is that it insists on references. Wikipedia does not pretend to be an authority. In this case the source is Climate and Earth’s Energy Budget NASA.
That’s fine as far as it goes. The people who edit the story choose the references to cite. Unless it is a contentious subject, in which case editing is shut down, anyone can edit a wiki article. Also, Wikipedia has actual editors who can do nasty things like enforcing climate orthodoxy. example So, caveat emptor.
“Svensmark I think suggested that the sun’s influence on the galactic cosmic rays affects the rate of radioactive decay in the core” –
no one and nothing affects the radioactive decay in the core. + what we surface dweller mostly can get is the radioactive decay in Earth’s crust rather then in Earth’s core.
“ 1. Is geothermal energy powerful enough to make a difference upon the vast ocean heat capacity?”
No it is not, but it may influence global temperatures indirectly, and in my view it does affect the North Atlantic accumulated cyclone energy ACE, i.e the hurricanes’ intensity.
In case you might ask but how does that work?
The heat being transferred from the ocean surface back into the atmosphere at high latitudes is as large as 50 -100W/m2 depending on the strength of the westerly cold winds blowing at high latitudes. By using the atmospheric pressure as a rough guide it is possible to estimate trend in the heat loss. More heath is taken out, faster and deeper is down-welling. It should be pointed out that the sinking current velocity has short term (in time and distance) vertical component directly proportional to its salinity but subsequently it has by far much longer term (in time and distance) horizontal component that is inversely proportional to the depth at which current flows. In another words colder and more saline water sinks faster and deeper, but then closer it is to the sea floor the lower is its onward velocity.
One part of the return current up-wells some 15 or so years later in the North Atlantic’s tropics along the west coast of North Africa, the area where the N. Atlantic hurricanes are initiated. Greater the temperature differential between the up-welling and the surface currents in the area more likely is that a hurricane will be spawned.
Consequently, the temperature and arrival time of the cold up-welling current reflects the heat lost in the down-welling process which, as mentioned above, is related to the wind intensity (or the atmospheric pressure) in the region to the south of the Denmark straits. The current flows along and across the mid-Atlantic volcanic ridge, at the times of the more active ridge even the smallest temperature rise of these waters will lift the current further from the sea floor, increasing its velocity.
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/ACE4.htm
I have often wondered about gravitational pull on active crust areas under the oceans that can be timed with Milanchovitch cycles being one of the main sources of ocean temperature changes in the past 800,000 years. The evidence is scant but lack of evidence does not mean evidence of absence. That phrase is the central feature of a possible confounding factor here: a possible source of changes in volcanic activity due to gravitational changes well described and modeled in Milanchovitch Cycle theory.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/02f6/e806cd77945aa7ddeff9c99208b1122ad044.pdf
hi there Ms Gray
I’m on that one with you. Considering the inter-glacial periods are shorter, the tectonic stress ‘time line’ critical points may show increased submarine volcanic activity along the ring of fire, preventing ‘down-welling’ currents’ sinking to the floor. The later up-welling waters will be fractionally warmer, repeating cycle of warmer down/up welling, kind of a positive feedback , during enhanced tectonic activity.
Using original spelling is simple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milutin_Milanković ignoring all ch-s makes life easier.
p.s . “….. vic” is equivalent to the anglo saxon “….. son”
vukcevic
Cognate with Russian suffix -vitch and Irish prefix fitz-.
I believe the “Irish” pre-fix Fitz is Norman. “O” is Anglo-Saxon. The Irish version is Mac, or Mc. Writes a nerd. On a more pertinent point I’ve been following Thongchai and reading the considerable library she has accumulated. The geology of the Arctic with the two rifts in either side of Greenland would explain the lack of sea ice in 1817 and 1922 id the numerous volcanoes on those rifts were active.
You’re right that it comes from the Norman French word for “son”. I didn’t mean that it was an Irish Gaelic term, only that it’s used in Irish surnames now. I suppose in some British names as well, such as Fitzroy, ie an illegitimate son of a king.
I wish I had my original spelling. West Nile Virus scrambled my ability to spell compared to before the bite. I have used the cycle term many times and had no problems remembering. But now it is like using a cup with the letters all shaken about and scrambled onto the page from the cup. It can take several tries to get words right now.
I have often wondered about gravitational pull on active crust areas under the oceans that can be timed with Milanchovitch cycles being one of the main sources of ocean temperature changes in the past 800,000 years. The evidence is scant but lack of evidence does not mean evidence of absence. That phrase is the central feature of a possible confounding factor here: a possible source of changes in volcanic activity due to gravitational changes well described and modeled in Milanchovitch Cycle theory.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/02f6/e806cd77945aa7ddeff9c99208b1122ad044.pdf
Interesting theory.
But an AU, astronomic unit, is 150 million kilometers.
“coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu › ask
What is an Astronomical Unit? | Cool Cosmos
An Astronomical Unit (AU) is the average distance between Earth and the Sun, which is about 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers.”
– so there’s no great chance that Mylankovich cycles affect live on Earth, Earth’s climate,”gravitational thrust” on Earth’s crust and so on.
Light from our sun needs 8 minutes to travel to Earth – think!
https://www.google.com/search?q=au+astronomical+unit+definition&oq=AU+astronomic+&aqs=chrome.
Name is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milutin_Milanković
The Hothouse climate of the mid-Cretaceous owed to active seafloor spreading at that time. Both thermal expansion and submarine mountain building drove seas up onto the continents.
Naturally, CO2 was higher then than now, but as an effect, not a primary cause of the ice-free climate of those ages in the Late Cretaceous Epoch. Ocean surface temperatures were remarkable hot. Climate was also notably equable, ie the temperature gradient from equator to poles was less pronounced than in our Icehouse world. Hence Arctic champosaurs, croc-relatives.
But even the Cretaceous and other Mesozoic hot spells suffered cold snaps, despite its high levels of plant food in the air.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150528083818.htm
Extreme global warming of Cretaceous period punctuated with significant global cooling
During the intervals when there was at least seasonal ice on the planet, feather evolution proceeded apace among birds’ dinosaur ancestors. There is even evidence for intermittent ice sheets on Mesozoic Antarctica and montane glaciers elsewhere, thanks to apparently rapid sea level changes.
And the inland seas did eventually recede. The heat returned however, in the later Paleogene and early Eocene Epochs of the Paleogene Period of our current Cenozoic Era.
Yeah but that Cretaceous cold-snap paper is coming from people that are fulling indoctrinated into the CO2 cult, which makes their research very unconvincing from the start.
True, the authors do genuflect toward the climate change deity. But such obligatory orthodox obeisance to a false god doesn’t necessarily negate any real science which they might have practiced.
If heat comes from the seafloor and no one is around to measure it, does it make the ocean warmer?
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/10/05/overview-seafloor-eruptions-and-ocean-warming/
I have read that one reason the water in the Indonesian area builds up so much heat it that not only is it solar heated but that area is quite active on the bottom, cooking it from below.
Also, there was some report that the northwestern Blob of warm water that keeps popping up might be related to volcanic activity in that area that irregularly dumps heat to the ocean.
Clearly, it is a mistake to pretend that the heat flux is homogenous. Localized geoheating can make the water and current to strange things.
Tectonic rifts, often mid-ocean – aggregate some 65,000 km (about 40,000 miles) and contain volcanic/hydrothermal vents in as yet uncounted numbers. These rifts are continuously adding thermal energy to oceans in unmeasured amounts, along with similarly unmeasured amounts of carbon dioxide. Where such rifts cross continents, such as the Great Rift Valley in Africa, they are home to carbonatitic volcanoes and massive sedimentary carbonate deposits such as Lake Magadi in Kenya. Given their inconvenient location, our knowledge of these rifts is miniscule and their effects on climate has been (and is being) relegated to the “too hard” basket. Ignoring two major (unknown) variables is not science.
It seems like a coincidence that geothermal heating would start to increase just as
human CO2 emissions also started to rise. Geothermal heating might increase the
equilibrium temperature of the oceans but it does not seem a likely cause of global
warming over a 50 year time span. You could relatively easily calculate the increase
in flux needed and so work out how many new volcanoes would have to erupted in the
last 50 years and then see if that was likely.
Our awareness of and thus measurement of geothermal heating is far too short in time to assign any causality from something that works on geologic time scales.
Joel,
If things are happening over geological time scales then nothing much will have changed
over the last 50 years and so geothermal sources can be discounted as a cause of recent
global warming.
= That’s what I said.
Izaak, that’s not the point, the point is that “evidence” of global warming problems like the lack of sea-ice in the Arctic, or the West Antarctic Ice Sheet melt can be explained by geological events. In case you didn’t know, I believe there are around 900,000 undersea volcanoes. To give you a very unscientific feel there are around 1500 land based volcanoes which average 60 eruptions a year, and assuming the same ratio of volcanoes undersea erupt a year that would mean 36,000 eruptions a year undersea. Plus the mantles in Greenland and the Antarctic are melting the ice sheets from below. So no, they don’t disprove global warming, but nor is evidence of global warming provided by looking at the ice sheets, or for that matter the coral reef which are similarly affected more by geological activities than air temperature.
Conclusion is that we are warming, but it’s not having much of an effect.
Geronimo,
So if there are 900000 undersea volcanoes then on average the same number
would be erupting every year and so this would contribute to a stable climate.
It would not explain a change in the climate and certainly not the rapid change
that has been observed over the last century. That would require significantly more
volcanoes to be erupting now than were erupting last century which is not something
for which there is any evidence or even any plausible reason to think that would be
the case (900,000 is sufficiently big that the law of large numbers would apply and
you would expect a very similar number of eruptions to happen each year).
Izaak Walton July 23, 2019 at 11:50 am
Geronimo,
So if there are 900000 undersea volcanoes then on average the same number
would be erupting every year.
____________________________________
Izaak, the point is: with 900,000 vulcanoes a year what do we argue tons of CO2.
tar and feathers and the biggest feather in your a$$ We could be your costumes at the next Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
But it works at both very long time scales and very short. Volcanoes vary incredibly over quite short time periods of decades or hundreds of years. We have no idea of the amplitude of the short term flux variations. It is entirely feasible that most of the variation we see in ‘temperature’ (if it is even valid to say we can measure a planet’s temperature) is caused by geothermal, solar and galactic variations.
Personally even the ‘measured’ temperature is suspect because of the short history of measurements and the way the temperature data has been ‘adjusted and homogenised’.
Dave,
It is simply not feasible that geothermal variations are the cause of recent temperature
changes. The fluxes are just too small and there is not reason to think that there have
been any significant changes to the flux. Radioactive decay is well understood and there
is nothing to suggest that the rate of radioactive decay is going to suddenly increase and
so cause an increase in the heat flux.
Solar variations are feasible but measurements suggest that there has not been a
significant variation over the 20th Century and if anything solar output has decreased.
As for galactic variations I have no idea what that means or even how it might change the
climate. I would guess that you are referring to cosmic rays causing a change in cloud
cover but that has never been demonstrated to have a major role and for it to be responsible
for recent global warming the sensitivity of the climate to clouds would have to be much
large than anyone currently things.
My point is that you can point to Wikepedia all you like but the fact is there is not good data on the heat flux, what the magnitude is, how it varies over time, it is an immature area of research, compounded by the fact that we can only access 30% of the planet’s surface to make measurements and then we have only done so in a few places. We have no idea what the flux is under the oceans.
And yes, I thought Svensmark suggested that solar variations and changes in the cosmic rays and galactic neutron density could in fact alter the rate of radioactive decay in the core.
I’m not sure if the terms ‘jitter’ or ‘wander’ mean anything to you, but the flux clearly must vary over time, and we have no idea what the frequency components of the variation is, the ‘jitter’ (ie high frequency changes) may be quite significant and may well be quite a short period, of the order of decades or centuries. It could easily be enough to explain the LIA and the Medieval Warm Period and why the glaciers began retreating almost 200 years ago.
” … and then see if that was likely”
No one knows how many undersea volcanoes are active now. Tough to get a rate of change.
Why haven’t we measured back-radiation to see how “likely” it’s been changing over the last 50 years?
It has been measured. See Gero/Turner 2011 as well as
https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/another-inconvenient-pause/
The reason we never hear about this is pretty obvious. One would think there would be hundreds of measurement stations around the world just like the Argo buoys.
Thank you Richard M
Excellent! Your linked article bolsters what I’ve come to ‘know’, and your comment about thinking there would be hundreds of measurement stations around the world is exactly what I’ve been wondering. Imagine if we had been compiling measurement data for hundreds of locations, we could begin to derive tools of reason.
A few lines from that link:
[ Carbon dioxide concentration changes have no detectable effect.
… increasing greenhouse gas concentrations have had no detectable effect on downwelling longwave radiation. Natural factors including cloudiness changes have vastly overwhelmed any such effect and have instead led to a decrease in downwelling longwave radiation.
In the most suitable location in Australia, from May 1998 to June 2018 there has been no increase in downwelling infra-red radiation, despite an increase of 41.556 ppm atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, 104.15 ppb of methane, and 14.472 ppb of nitrous oxide. ]
It doesn’t have to be volcanoes. The planet radiates or conducts from the heat of the interior everywhere. The volcanoes are just the top end of the range. We also have no real idea how that flux varies over time – individual volcanoes can be inactive for millennia and then erupt again for decades or centuries before going quiet again.
Izaak Walton July 22, 2019 at 11:52 am
It seems like a coincidence that geothermal heating would start to increase just as
human CO2 emissions also started to rise.
Izaak Walton, “geothermal heating” started 4.8 billion years ago.
What stuff are you depend on?
Perhaps it is not coincidental. Perhaps a correlation exists where geothermal heating of the oceans helped create conditions whereby mankind could more successfully propagate the species and feed the growth through more favorable growing conditions and greater CO2 released in accordance with Henry’s Law.
Perhaps. . .
I (currently) have no reason to doubt the estimated average geothermal heat fluxes. But that’s not necessarily the most salient point to current discussions.
What we most need to know is the variation, both temporal, geographic, and in scale. Things that will only become clear over time with detailed observations by honest scientists not wedded to a belief in speculative models.
A sudden heat flux that changes the course of, say, an ocean current or an ice sheet, might approximate to a tipping point so often proclaimed by those looking for a disaster. Discovering that such tipping points happen frequently, with no consequent adverse effects, is probably they last thing alarmists want to either hear or publicize.
While I agree with most things Judith Curry says and don’t doubt her honesty and motives for a second, it would have been really good if she had said all these things more than ten years ago. It’s not like they are new ideas/criticisms.
Many complex natural systems with an energy flux passing though them evolve to exhibit cyclical behavior. Even non-linear chaotic systems exhibit periodic behavior around an attractor. That is a store and release cycle of energy.
Thus the hypothesis: Heat flux thru the earth’s crust, from the asthenosphere to the lithosphere into the abyssal oceans, does so in a cyclical store-release manner. Corollary: The time scale would be on a period of tens of millions of years, as seen by the more rapid tectonic shifting/drifting of the Miocene, a hypothesized “high release” period. Such a geologically active period would result in long-term increased CO2 release by volcanic venting, making CO2 correlate as an effect of warmer oceans, not causal.
I would submit that most of the navies of the world have a better than passing idea of the effects of geothermal underwater releases on the temperature of the ocean bottom. If thermoclines are important, then local thermoclines must also be important.
If we ever get out of the statist trap of “War is the health of the State”, we will probably find a lot of hidden information on the oceans and their deep behavior.
Come down 1 or 2 km into a gold mine here and soon notice the sweat on your face. Did I not tell you all?
In addition. Tmin is dropping here, where I live. How come?
The only explanation is that the inside of earth is moving. North east. Much faster the past 100 years than the century before…
Hi Henry
my daughter (professional geologist) recently went twice to the bottom of Cullinan mine (-880m) and said it was hot, hot. On plus side she spent several days at Kruger park and 4-5 days at Vergelegen.
Yes, as you go deep into the Earth in a mine, it gets hot. The deeper you go, the hotter it gets.
So, the obvious question is why the ocean doesn’t get hotter with depth. The obvious answer is convection. The cold arctic waters move toward the bottom of the oceans, but they don’t stay there. Geothermal heat contributes to the convection that keeps the ocean from slowly filling with cold water from the bottom up. link
–Geothermal heat contributes to the convection that keeps the ocean from slowly filling with cold water from the bottom up.–
Right.
Couple of things I will mention.
The way our land and ocean and mountains, etc, globally has been arranged, has large cooling effects.
And is why, we are in an Ice Age, and we have been in for millions of years.
The elephant in the room is these cooling effects.
So have cooling effect which is slow, million years of time, and cooling effect of shorter time of last 5000 years, and we have blip of cooling of Little Ice Age, and much shorter period of warming, seeming begin around 1800 to 1850 AD, though rather saying warming, one could say, it began to cool less.
And the focus is on what causing global warming, rather the slow and powerful cooling effects.
The attention on warming, has resulted in some people running around with their hair fire, imagining Earth will become something like Venus, any day now.
One can say the propaganda of world ending warming, has been extremely optimistic or at least “very creative” {or perverted}.
But it seemed fairly effective in hiding the elephant of what is causing all the cooling.
Since Little Ice Age was recent, it seems to me that it might be easier, to look at the recent past and find clues to what causing these short periods, mere centuries of time, which are causing some of these cooling effects.
But it’s explainable as the focus and money has been on the atmosphere. And there is no doubt weather and it’s immediate effects, is, as a national matter, important.
But global climate is large and slow, and obviously about the Earth’s ocean. But it’s not like no one has failed to mentioned that it takes more than decade to measure global temperatures, though perhaps they should have said centuries {which is not as good in terms of trying to sell something}.
The other thing is this ocean geothermal heat, does interferes with the Snowball Earth idea or story {or fantasy}.
Fact – The average depth of the ocean is about 12,100 feet .
Fact – The rock face temperature reaches 60 °C (140 °F) in The TauTona Mine or Western Deep No.3 Shaft, a gold mine in South Africa, at 3.9 km (2.4 mi or 12,795 feet) underground. All of the heat that is making that mine that deep that warm is also going into the ocean, even more at the greater depths of the ocean. Then as the article discusses you need to discuss the thermal vents pumping out water that was subducted into even deeper depths of the Earth and heated to even higher temperatures. I seriously doubt that 30 – 40 years ago those devising the Global Warming Theory had any idea that these vents even existed let alone the magnitude of them.
Is the reference to mine temperatures valid? Those are environments that have very little heat transfer due to limited air flows. Is there going to be large areas at the sea floor with similar constant surface temperatures?
Have there been studies of seabed temperatures? Rate of heat transfer also heavily depends on the speed of the water passing by.
“Rate of heat transfer also heavily depends on the speed of the water passing by.” Doesn’t the heat transfer also change the speed of the water passing by? Unless it’s moved by some other means, the water speed would track the rate of transfer, no?
Brad July 22, 2019 at 9:14 pm
Is the reference to mine temperatures valid? Those are environments that have very little heat transfer due to limited air flows.
_____________________________________________
Brad, all “environments” including oceans, mountains, earth under the soil … have “very little heat transfer due to limited air flows” except on – the surface.
Think that discussions absolutely fruitless – what is climate compared to a whole planet.
Brad July 22, 2019 at 9:14 pm
Is the reference to mine temperatures valid? Those are environments that have very little heat transfer due to limited air flows.
____________________________________________
Brad, “flowing air” in that mine would not be measurable “cooler” than “still air”.
There’s e lots of heavy transport machines in such a mine, rolling conveyor belts too, causing air “flowing” – you think that cools? Bet not.
You may have seen the alarming headlines “The Antarctic is Melting! ”
It may be true, but not due to surface global warming. It is most likely geothermal warming from underground volcanism in the West Antarctic Rift System (WARS), extending from the McMurdo volcanic group (Mt. Erebus), across the Ross Embayment, to the Larsen Ice Fields and the Bransfield Strait sub-ocean volcanoes
http://www.plateclimatology.com/how-geologic-forces-are-melting-the-antarctic-larsen-b-ice-shelf
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/mt-erebus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bransfield_Strait
WARS is an underground valley where the tectonic plates forming East and West Antarctic are pulling apart, similar to the Mid-Atlantic ridge around Iceland. This allows magma to flow out to form new plate material, along with other volcanic effects.
The strongest volcanic activity seems to be coming from the Orca seamount, an active underground volcano near King George Island. Nearby (south of Livingston Island) is a another volcano, Deception Island.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/62%C2%B026'00.0%22S+58%C2%B024'00.0%22W/@-62.482546,-59.0733981,124722m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d-62.433334!4d-58.400002?hl=en
I have been watching sulfur dioxide emissions from both volcanoes, which can be conveniently viewed in real time using the Czech weather portal, Windy.com. It has a setting for displaying SO₂ concentration (in μg/m^3). (When the winds are just right, you can zoom into Deception Island and see the fumes coming directly from Fumarole Bay.)
https://www.windy.com/-Show-add-more-layers/overlays?so2sm,2019-07-22-03,-62.597,-58.749,8
You can also watch the emissions from Mt. Erebus (near McMurdo Station) using Windy:
https://www.windy.com/-Show-add-more-layers/overlays?so2sm,2019-07-22-03,-77.877,163.773,6,m:vWakNJ
I can see other Antarctic SO₂ sources too, but have not identified what they are.
☆Does anyone know just the Japan triple meltdowns global tempt increase ?.
“Does anyone know just the Japan triple meltdowns global tempt increase?”
No problem:
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-huawei&q=the+Japan+triple+meltdowns+global+temp+increase&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjooPCz4MzjAhWwlIsKHWbvAD4QBSgAegQICxAC&biw=360&bih=518
Does anybody know how to do “a Japan triple meltdowns global tempt increase?” on the whole planet and hold it to decades or, just for fun, through centuries?
Get’s comical, that conversation. But – lots of correctly applied technical terms.
I find it strange how few studies seem to be made of the distribution of oxygen in the deep oceans, given that all oxygen in marine waters has to have originated from surface waters in the photic zone.
A brief online search found this from 1984
Deacon, G.E.R., 1984 Oxygen in Antarctic water.
and earlier work by the same author
Clowes, A.J. and Deacon, G.E.R., 1935 The Deep-Water Circulation of the Indian Ocean.
and this from a modern researcher
Gilbert, D. 2018 Ocean ventilation: oxygen pathways from the ocean’s surface to the ocean’s interior.
Phillip, unfortunately ocean oxygen research has been co-opted as an alamist talking point. Dead zones are real, not caused by CO2, but rather the oceanic breathing mechanism, with the Southern Ocean the key player. Here is a post that goes into recent findings about this aspect of ocean behavior.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2017/02/19/ocean-oxygen-misdirection/
Yes, it does seem that the interior heat sources of the earth have received scant attention. But to argue that those sources are less effective than human CO2 production seems inane. After all there are a few other influences on this climate:
Unfortunately, CO2 is not at the moment the controlling factor on global temperature*, which responds to the summation of the effects of:
THE EARTH’S AXIS, which varies between 22 and 24 degrees over tens of thousands of years. This in turn is becoming more variable as the moon’s orbit recedes from the earth. This must be stopped.
AXIAL PRECESSION, which changes the orientation of the earth’s axis. This must be stopped.
The earth’s ALBEDO, reflecting incoming sunlight. This varies with volcanic eruptions, snow and ice cover, and cloud formation influenced by incoming cosmic rays. This must be stopped.
the earth’s ORBIT, which is slightly eccentric, altering insolation. This should be smoothed and stabilized.
SOLAR OUTPUT variability. The sun has increased its total output by about 40% in the last 400 million years. Although that varies very little, at the moment, the quality of the output does vary significantly in terms of wavelength. This must be stopped or homogenized.
AMO Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (circulation)
AMOC Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)
NAO North Atlantic Oscillation
PDO Pacific Decadal Oscillation
ENSO El Niño-Southern Oscillation
https://youtu.be/EjlIeQFxdlE?list=PLE58D7C6184A50A64 VG
DANSGAARD–OESCHGER warming events**
LA NIÑA
AMM Atlantic Multidecadal Mode
NPGO North Pacific Gyre Oscillation
VOLCANOES – (With a major eruption, temperature may go up or down. With the former, we blame CO2, and with the latter, aerosols.)
COSMIC RAYS
TECTONIC SHIFTS
and, oh yes, CO2…
*The 30% reduction in human CO2 production associated with the onset of the Great Depression 1929-1931 was, as we know, associated with continuing increase in global temperature till 1942, and no decrease in global atmospheric CO2.
** https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/palo.20042
Judith, I have really enjoyed perusing the studies and pages of this web site and would welcome your comments after your review:
http://www.plateclimatology.com
In particular:
http://www.plateclimatology.com/why-el-nio-and-la-nia-are-one-continuous-geological-event
http://www.plateclimatology.com/how-la-ninas-successfully-prove-that-el-nios-are-geological-in-origin
I cannot see how one can measure the amount of warming of the lower ocean through its contact with the basement rocks. What. In brief. Is the method? Refs?
Is it via heat transfer equations with a several flat layer model?
Geoff S
Geoff, what is a flat layer model.
Anyway, even without all them volcanoes in the depth and without salt solved in the oceans – the pressure of the weight of the water columns over oceanic depths warms that same water columns and hinder the oceans to freeze – some of the surface, never in the depths!
I had to dive to fairly abyssal depths in my old bookmarks file to find this old nugget…
Geothermal heating, diapycnal mixing and the abyssal circulation
J. Emile-Geay1 and G. Madec2,
It’s a bit out of date being from 2009, but I referenced it in a few comments here in ’10-’11 and in prepping those comments I went rummaging for similarly themed papers and found the ground relatively barren in that regard. Certainly nothing like the quantity of papers referenced in this post and thread, so perhaps the authors were successful in advancing their claim that the results they generated strongly suggested the need for further study in this area.
I’m not exactly sure why this piece became a personal favorite, maybe it’s just that I like their style. Most people don’t share my enthusiasm and I do admit the density of the oceanographer’s jargon can be a bit daunting at first, but if you aren’t an active participant in the field it’s still relatively readable summary of the topic
ah, so the Trades Union of academic researchers finally claims, twenty years behind the curve, that geothermal warming influences global temperature.
Just shows that progress is only about status and money, not about scientific investigation.
In above comments I see hardly any mention of the source of the OHC.
Our deep oceans are hot (~275K, already ~20K above the famous 255K T eff.)
Seasonal solar heating doesn’t penetrate much below ~400m before the water loses this energy again at the surface in the cold season. Inescapable conclusion is imo that the OHC of the oceans below ~500m is 100% of geothermal origin, just as all Earths crust is completely heated from below, except for the upper 10-20m of our continents.
Geothermal flux is ~100 mW/m^2 , capable of warming the average column (~3700m) 1K every 5000 year.
Likewise it takes 1 million km^3 magma cooling in the oceans to warm all ocean water 1K.
The temperature (OHC) of the deep oceans is a balance between this slow heating by geothermal minus cooling at high latitudes, mostly AABW .
For the last 80-90 my this balance has been mostly negative, with Earth slowly cooling and entering an ever deepening ice age.
The warm oceans before ~90 mya can be explained by the balance being on the warming side due to well over 100 million km^3 magma erupting into the oceans, mainly from the Ontong Java event.
Once we accept that the OHC is mostly from geothermal origin, it is possible for the little solar energy that actually reaches the surface (< 50%) to increase the temperature of the mixed surface layer a few degrees.
The atmosphere now only has to reduce the energy loss to space, and we have a balanced energy budget.
We should start thinking of solar energy in MJ/m^2 warming the upper 5-10m directly.
https://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/properties-of-sunlight/isoflux-contour-plots
A good sunny day delivers some 20 MJ/m^2, enough energy to warm 5 m water around 1K.
“In above comments I see hardly any mention of the source of the OHC.
Our deep oceans are hot (~275K, already ~20K above the famous 255K T eff.)
Seasonal solar heating doesn’t penetrate much below ~400m before the water loses this energy again at the surface in the cold season. ”
Well, that’s interesting. But tend to ask why ocean is cold if average global temperature is 15 C. I ask such a question, because it has obvious answers.
You say, “Seasonal solar heating doesn’t penetrate much below ~400m” but also geothermal does not heat “much” either.
–Inescapable conclusion is imo that the OHC of the oceans below ~500m is 100% of geothermal origin, just as all Earths crust is completely heated from below, except for the upper 10-20m of our continents.–
One could also say below 500 meter 100% is from polar cold water.
It seems difference of rock and water is with water you get big floods- of warm or cold waters.
So rock is not going cause cold periods like Little Ice Age, nor does rock cause warm periods. It seems water can be churning and it can still water, and rock is mostly solid- and non transparent.
One could say below 400 meters the ocean waters generally are well insulated. But you do have dense warm salty water falling, thinking particularly of near Saudi Arabia, but seems to some extent it could be more widespread. Also wonder about mixing events from perhaps hurricanes, but maybe a bigger effect from piling up of western warm water from El Ninos and also perhaps Antarctic circulation mixing. Perhaps large river run off. And maybe other things- also what about comparative warm water being cooled falling and replaced by warmer water- so in temperate ocean zones, plus evaporative cooling due to wind making saltier cooler water [but still warmer water than deeper water] falling. Also Ocean has all kinds of eddies, whirlpools, etc.
Anyhow, that at 400 meter is insulated from above warming, also insulate from warming from geothermal heating rising. And the geothermal heating in addition to heating is also mixing.
I always think the mixing of entire ocean as warming effect- long term warming effect.
gbaikie July 23, 2019 at 9:18 am
According GH theory the sun warms the Earth to 255K average. The atmosphere increases the surface temperature to ~288K avg. So deep oceans at 275K are ~20K WARMER than the 255K Teff.
Did the atmosphere warm the deep oceans ~20K to their present temperatures?
Geohermal flux is ~100 mW/m^2 for the oceanic crust. Without cooling this can warm ALL ocean water 1K every ~5000 years. So in just 500.000 years the oceans would be boiling without the cooling effect from colder water sinking to the ocean floor, mostly from around Antarctica (AABW)
If water was immobile like the crust, the temperature near the ocean floor would be comparable to crust temperatures at 4000 m deep: 375-425K.
–Ben Wouters July 24, 2019 at 2:04 am
gbaikie July 23, 2019 at 9:18 am
But tend to ask why ocean is cold if average global temperature is 15 C.
According GH theory the sun warms the Earth to 255K average. The atmosphere increases the surface temperature to ~288K avg. So deep oceans at 275K are ~20K WARMER than the 255K Teff.
Did the atmosphere warm the deep oceans ~20K to their present temperatures?–
Well, I think it’s interesting question if you believe in GH theory.
But I believe the transparent ocean increases global temperature.
As in, if put an ocean on Mars, you increase the average temperature of Mars.
And it matters that the ocean is transparent, ie if covered the Earth’s ocean with black plastic it prevents the warming effect of an ocean, and would result in cooling Earth.
So, in my view, atmosphere doesn’t warm ocean, but rather ocean surface warms the atmosphere.
I think ocean warms the land, and land cools the planet.
I think it undeniable fact that average ocean surface temperature is about 17 C and average land surface air temperature is about 10 C.
An my opinion is if ocean temperature was for some reason cooler, than the average surface air temperature of the land would be colder than 10 C.
And if land for some reason had higher average temperature, it doesn’t warm the ocean, BUT ocean would not cool as much [or ocean would need to warm the land as much]. So Land cools and ocean warms.
And I think the temperature of entire ocean determine global climate.
Our entire ocean average temperature is about 3.5 C and that causes the Earth to be in an Ice Age or Icebox climate.
Icebox climate is cold oceans and polar icecaps.
And large part of Earth history has had warmer ocean, +10 C, and that is not a cold ocean and it was not in an Ice Age. Or in our current Ice Age the ocean temperature has been in the range of 1 to 5 C.
But if one were to believe atmosphere warms and the average global was 15 C [or more precisely, the average air temperature over the ocean was about 17 C] why is the ocean not warmer than 3.5 C.
Now I imagine a believer of the greenhouse effect theory, would say the ocean is colder, because we had long time periods of glacial periods. And the air cooled the ocean {or something}.
But I do think the warmed ocean surface does warm the entire Ocean.
And I think the ocean geothermal heat also warms the entire Ocean.
And don’t think the geothermal heat of the Land does much of anything to increase global air temperature or global temperature.
So when climate scientists claim the global warming is lost in the ocean, I do think that is true. I would say “global warming” is lost in the ocean and lost on the Land.
And btw, I am lukewarmer, I think doubling of CO2 could cause some warming- maybe higher levels of CO2 reduce heat loss {probably mostly slows lost of heat from mostly land areas- but land area are only 30% of surface of the planet, and ocean surface temperature controls or is, global air temperature}.
–Geothermal flux is ~100 mW/m^2 for the oceanic crust. Without cooling this can warm ALL ocean water 1K every ~5000 years. So in just 500.000 years the oceans would be boiling without the cooling effect from colder water sinking to the ocean floor, mostly from around Antarctica (AABW)–
Most of history of Earth didn’t have icecaps, and had warmer oceans in polar regions. So you would not have this effect which causes us to be in an Ice Age. So the sinking colder water is not preventing the ocean from boiling, it’s simply causing us to be in an Ice Age.
gbaikie July 24, 2019 at 5:42 am
I believe diagrams like these show otherwise:
or
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190501114549.htm
“A swirling sea
The Great Whirl is a huge whirlpool that forms every spring off the coast of Somalia, when winds blowing across the Indian Ocean change direction from west to east. English geographer Alexander Findlay first described the Great Whirl in his navigational directory for the Indian Ocean in 1866.
…
The Great Whirl’s circular currents extend hundreds of meters downward and can go farther than 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) deep in some areas. The inertia it generates keeps the Whirl going well past the end of monsoon season in September, until typically disappearing late in the fall.”
If I may offer my 2p/2 cents worth, climate, we are told, is a non-linear or chaotic system. It is my understanding that in such a system small changes in one or more parameters can result in large systemic changes. Therefore,to fully comprehend such a system would require that all variables, no matter how insignificant they appear to be, have to be taken into account, as the butterfly wings cannot be identified.
The real problem is that this is all being modelled in the digital domain, which, as the discoverer of chaos theory found, means that rounding errors potentially could produce the “wrong” result. I have wondered whether an old fashioned analogue computer made from op-amps, zener diodes, resistors, capacitors and inductors might be a better option (it would be more fun too).
“The real problem is that this is all being modelled in the digital domain, which, as the discoverer of chaos theory found, means that rounding errors potentially could produce the “wrong” result.”
Add to that: nowadays computers CAN’T produce natural random numbers – there’s no formula, no algorithm till today to produce “natural random numbers”.
So even super computers can forecast what is the world like in 10 years, not to speak about 30 years –
– when we speak of “rounding errors” in a world based on nonlinear coupled systems with chaotic behavior.
That’s why Laplace’s Demon can’t foresee correctly the world’s state, not even for 10 minutes.
There is more unknown than known about the climate on our planet but they are sure there is a consensus and that 97% agree, although nobody can define the universe from which the 97% was identified.
Edwin, here we go:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pmc
Webergebnisse
The Discovery of New Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vent Communities in the …
von AD Rogers · 2012 · Zitiert von: 172 ·
03.01.2012 · Since the first discovery of deep-sea hydrothermal vents …. To the north, the Scotia Plate abuts the South American …
https://www.google.com/search?q=study+five+thermal+vents+off+the+SW+tip+of+South+America.&oq=study++five+thermal+vents+off+the+SW+tip+of+South+America.&aqs=chrome.
My fault – electrons –> electromagnetic material:
Edwin “energy lost by the diminishing geomagnetic field has been equal to the energy required to warm the ocean and the atmosphere, as observed”.
Would be a 0 sum game: either a magnetic field works as a “dynamo” producing warmth by accelerating electromagnetic material or existing energie no longer used for holding up the magnetic field is “used / available” directly as energie.
“Svensmark I think suggested that the sun’s influence on the galactic cosmic rays affects the rate of radioactive decay in the core” –
no one and nothing affects the radioactive decay in the core. + what we surface dweller mostly can get is the radioactive decay in Earth’s crust rather then in Earth’s core.
– while our sun doesn’t sport heavy urinium metals: our sun burns hydrogen + oxygen to helium, enough done with that, we have a generation I sun, heavy metals stem from long exploded generation III sun’s.
“Svensmark I think suggested that the sun’s influence on the galactic cosmic rays affects the rate of radioactive decay in the core” –
no one and nothing affects the radioactive decay in the core. + what we surface dweller mostly can get is the radioactive decay in Earth’s crust rather then in Earth’s core.
– since our sun doesn’t sport heavy urinium metals: our sun burns hydrogen + oxygen to helium, enough done with that, we have a generation I sun, heavy metals stem from long exploded generation III sun’s / stars.
Izaak Walton July 23, 2019 at 11:50 am
Geronimo,
So if there are 900000 undersea volcanoes then on average the same number
would be erupting every year.
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Izaak, the point is: with 900,000 vulcanoes a year what do we argue tons of CO2.
tar and feathers and the biggest feather in your a$$ could be your costumes at the next Mardi Gras in New Orleans.