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That post used graphs to display the mean average Conservative Temperature (CT) on a World Ocean Database (WOD) layer by layer basis.
The mean average was derived as an average of the sea water temperatures at 33 depth levels.
Those levels are described in the WOD Manual at Appendix 11 (WOD 2013 User's Manual, PDF).
The main reason I use that depth level schedule is that the appendix also contains high and low ranges for temperature and salinity so I can determine if a particular measurement is within the normal bounds presented in that table.
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Today I present the CT DNA at the five pelagic levels (Pelagic Biome).
These five levels are constructed from the CT calculated using the 33 depth level in situ measurements I mentioned above.
Then, once the CT is calculated the 33 depth level values are merged into 5 pelagic depth levels which are mean averages condensed from those 33 WOD depth levels.
CT DNA is determined by the TEOS-10 CT value algorithm, along with the CT stream's high and low ranges (three graph lines per depth level).
Those ranges are then filled-in with black pixels to help visualize the range as well as the trend of Ocean Heat Content (OHC) and Ocean Heat Flux (OHF).
The individual line colors are depicted in the "Color Scheme on Graph Lines" at the top-left graphic in this post.
If you look closely at the graphs you will see that the OHC and OHF lines cross over one another at times in several WOD Layers.
Additionally, you may notice that at times deeper depth OHC and OHF become warmer than, and/or mix with, upper levels (and vice versa).
This mixing and variation makes it difficult to maintain the argument that ocean depths levels are places where temperatures, and therefore OHC and OHF, are always at a constant range.
The OHC or OHF trail can become quickly lost if one uses a model that calculates OHC and/or OHF using the outmoded "Potential Temperature" instead of using the modern official "Conservative Temperature" as a calculation sonar (e.g. Potential Enthalpy: A Conservative Oceanic Variable for Evaluating Heat Content and Heat Fluxes, McDougal 2003, pp. 945-46).
The graphs show that even when there is a major mixing event the CT comes out on the other side and proceeds intact.
The proportion graphs in previous posts also show how absolute proportion between CT, potential enthalpy (heat content, hO), moles per kg, and photons per mole is maintained at all depth levels during changes or mixing (Patterns: Conservative Temperature & Potential Enthalpy, 2, 3).
The point of all this is to be able to recognize that we can only follow the OHC if we have and use proper methods.
Think of a submarine without a working sonar ... it is a fish out of water.
With CT we can follow the OHC and the OHF all the way to the face of tidewater glaciers where the infrared photons are radiated away from atoms inside tidewater molecules and into the atoms of glacial ice molecules (Atoms & Light Energy, Photon Creation & Destruction).
It is merely the laws of thermodynamics operating at all depths of the oceans that allows photon transport over short distances at long (infrared) wavelengths (long distances in short-wavelength cases).
When the photons radiate away from the atoms of sea water molecules at one location into atoms of other sea water molecules at another location, the temperature and energy level changes at both places.
So, proper analytical tools must be able to follow them even when tidewater glacier ice is the other location.
When ice melts and becomes sea water the trail can be lost unless the analysis can still follow the trail (The Ghost Plumes, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).
Which means yet another temperature change, but that does not at all mean the "heat" is gone.
That OHC is in two or more places now, still adding up to what it was before the OHF of thermodynamics made spontaneous changes.
This is happening all over the globe in the ocean depths at this very moment I am writing this and also at the moment you are reading it.
It is important to remember that a decrease in OHC via photon radiation at location "A" means an increase in OHC at location "B" where those photons are re-absorbed.
It is also important to remember that the overall amount of energy is still the same when the temperatures at both locations change as a result of photon transfer, a.k.a. OHF.
So, when we look at graphs that show CT decreasing the thing not to do is to say stupid things like "the oceans are cooling so global warming is a hoax."
The thing to do is to use proper analytical tools to find out, by in situ measurements used to generate CT values, where the temperature rose, which means where the photons that radiated were re-absorbed.
Sometimes that location "B" is down deeper in the ocean than we think we need to measure, which means that the OHC can be improperly accounted for.
All sea water thermodynamics, whether temperature decreasing OHF or temperature increasing OHF are dynamics that obey the laws of thermodynamics.
The graph lines' ups and downs, their blending, and their mixing, over all the many years the graphs depict, is not the water moving, it is the photons in the water that are moving.
In this context, in situ temperature and OHF changes are indicators of the sea water's infra-red photon realm spontaneously moving to a cooler sea water molecule below, beside, or above it.
The ocean is a place with trillions upon trillions of nomad photons constantly traveling on OHF wavelengths in order to bring about OHC equilibrium.
And it is a never ending job because a new generation of infra-red photons enter the ocean every second, every hour, and every day (The Ghost Photons, 2, 3).
And the higher energy photons of visible light do the same at shallow depths, to then eventually become infra-red photons as they travel to deeper, cooler water.
Photons can radiate into and out of any molecule, be it a molecule of a gas, a liquid, or a solid.
So, tracing their path up, down, and around the oceans has been interesting (The long story of constraining ocean heat content).
It's like we all going to live in a yellow submarine without adequate sonar unless and until we master the CT DNA realm and use the TEOS-10 standard algorithms.
Monitoring OHF requires measurements at all depths, not just near the surface as we have, for the most part, been doing.
In closing, remember that CT is derived using, among other values, Absolute Salinity (SA) as one of the calculation parameters:
double Z = gsw_z_from_p(height, latitude);
double P = gsw_p_from_z(Z, latitude);
double SA = gsw_sa_from_sp(practical salinity, P, longitude, latitude);
double CT = gsw_ct_from_t(SA, in situ temperature, P);
And remember that our detection system needs to be very refined, because only 1.14% of the Cryosphere needs to melt and/or calve in order to bring us disaster (The 1.14% vs. The 100%, The
The previous post in this series is here.
Baffled is as baffled does (link).
ReplyDeleteYep (Ice sheet contributions to future sea-level rise from structured expert judgment).
ReplyDeleteThe oyster wars (Fighting Rising Tides).
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