The Blobosphere and Beyond

The Blobosphere

I. How To Study
Bloby Oceans

Some say that the atmosphere is the place to look for information when studying Ocean Heat Content (OHC) and/or Ocean Heat Flux (e.g. On Resplandy Et Alia (2018) - 2).

That is a bit unusual, like studying the lungs to find out about the heart, because actually it is a better practice to study the ocean directly or use the World Ocean Database (WOD) to find out about the oceans (The Appendix of Vestigial Textbooks).

Concerning the 'blob' ... one paper asserts:

"The marine heat wave was first noted over deep waters of the northeastern Pacific Ocean in January 2014 ... anomalous temperatures at coastal GOA

WOD Zone 7312

stations arrived variously between January and June. Warm temperature anomalies were confined to the top 100 meters until late 2014, after which they penetrated to depths of 300 meters and reached strengths greater than 2 standard deviations ... The consensus of previous studies is that atmospheric circulation anomalies played a key role initiating and maintaining the North Pacific 'blob' of warm water"

(Walsh et alia, 2018). Using WOD in situ data in the zones shown in Fig. 1 puts some shade on that proclamation.

WOD Zone 7313

WOD Zone 7314

After converting in situ temperature measurements (T) recorded in the WOD into Conservative Temperature (CT), using the TEOS-10 toolbox, and then looking at the subsurface CT trends, it is apparent that warming has taken place prior to the years asserted in Walsh et alia 2018.

That subsurface warming has continued, and in fact in recent years one could say it has gotten worse because the Bering Sea sea ice has not developed for two seasons now.

II. Warming CT Peaks
In WOD Zones

(Shown in Fig. 1)

The following list shows the year, zone, and depth level of CT peaks shown in today's graphs.

(Note that 'e' = Epipelagic, 'm' = Mesopelagic, and 'b' = Bathypelagic depths; the four digits indicate the WOD Zone number):

2000: 7312m
2001: 7312m,7413e
2002: 7312m,
2003: 7314e,7413e,7414b,7417e,7515m,7614e
2004: 7313e,7315e,7316e,7316m,7317e,7415e,7416e,7416m,7417m,7516e
2004: 7516m, 7614e, 7712e
2005: 7412m,7412b,7413m,7413b,7512e,7512m,7512b,7513m,7513b,7514e,7517e
2006: 7312m,7314m,7414e,7514m,7715m
2007: 7516b
2008: 7312b,7313b,7415e,7417e,7417m,7613e
2009: 7415b
2010: 7413e,7415m,7513e,7514e,7514m,7514e,7515e,7516m,7713m,7715m
2011: 7313m,7413m,7413m,7414e,7414m,7416e,7416m,7417e
2012: 7317b,7412e,7415e,7515b,7517b,7714m
2013: 7313e,7314m,7315e,7317e,7317m
2014: 7314e,7416b,7715m
2015: 7412e,7414e,7416e,7417e,7417m,
2016: 7312e,7313e,7512e,7513e,7514e,7515e,7516e,7517e,7712e
2017: 7713e,7713m,7715m,7716m
2018: 7316b,7413b,7714m

This warming flow of the N. Pacific Current sea water into the Gulf of Alaska via the Alaska Current has been happening under the covers, so to speak, for longer than the atmosphere above the covers would suggest.

WOD Zone 7315

WOD Zone 7316

WOD Zone 7317

WOD Zone 7412

WOD Zone 7413

WOD Zone 7414

WOD Zone 7415

WOD Zone 7416

WOD Zone 7417

WOD Zone 7512

WOD Zone 7513

WOD Zone 7514

WOD Zone 7515

WOD Zone 7516

WOD Zone 7517

WOD Zone 7712

WOD Zone 7713

WOD Zone 7714

WOD Zone 7715

WOD Zone 7716

III. How To Study The Blob

A. Skim The Surface

The researchers who are studying the atmosphere in order to study the oceanic phenomenon nicknamed "the Blob" are "going around the barn" (Fig. 1).

It seems to me that studying the hot pool of water in, at, and/or near the Great Pacific Garbage Patch would be a more natural beginning (New Continent Found - Garbage Gyre II).

Like the black soot on glaciers and ice sheets that is said to be a collector of heat by impairing albedo, thereby melting the icy surface it lands upon (Dark Snow).

The plastic and other garbage will warm as photons from the Sun are absorbed, then emit those photons into the cooler seawater around them.

The fact that recently, without the 'blob', the Bering Sea surface has lost its typical, natural winter sea ice cover is also instructive (Mysterious Zones of The Arctic - 2).

Still, observing those surface phenomena where the atmosphere contacts the ocean surface is only skimming the surface.

We should know by now that subsurface sea water is warmer than the surface water temperatures below and beyond the blobosphere latitudes and longitudes, so, where to next?

B. Go Deeper

Today's graphs are "DNA" style with a granularity of one WOD Zone (Beyond Fingerprints: Sea Level DNA - 3).

The Conservative Temperature spikes can be seen in the "DNA" patterns at the Epipelagic (0 - 200 meters), Mesopelagic (201 - 1000 meters), and Bathypelagic (1001 - 4000 meters) depths shown in the graphs.

(In some cases the graphs show only one pelagic depth because of sea ice cover or shallowness of the ocean near the coastline.)

The WOD Zones which the graphs depict are shown in Fig. 1.

There is also a "Legend" with colored squares indicating the peaks in CT calculated using in situ measurements and the TEOS-10 toolbox.

Each WOD Zone in the "blobosphere" is outlined in blue on Fig. 1 and can have a maximum of three small squares (indicating CT peak info).

The small squares indicate the depths of the peak CT values shown in the list of zones in Section II above.

The real story is that neither the Great Pacific Garbage Patch nor atmospheric temperatures over the surface of the N. Pacific can explain the CT spikes at up to 4,000 meters deep.

There is a movement of subsurface warming water, caused by OHC (i.e. "Potential Enthalpy" or h^O) which can be tracked reasonably using CT.

IV. Other Research

Other research shows that the warmer waters at serious depths flow through the Bering Sea up through the Bering Strait and into the Chukchi Sea.

From there they flow eastward into the Beaufort Gyre to be mixed with deep, warming Atlantic waters (Mysterious Zones of The Arctic, 2, 3).

This is not in any way the result of atmospheric dynamics, nor even of ocean surface dynamics alone.

Serious deep ocean currents and heat flux (OHF) are at work all the way to 'the last ice area' near the N. Greenland coastline (Mysterious Zones of The Arctic - 2).

These currents are a lot like the serious deep ocean currents and OHF at work around the coastlines of Antarctica (Mysterious Zones of Antarctica, 2, 3, 4).

V. Stay Focused

Like CO₂ increases, which reached 415 ppm this year (as predicted by Oil Qaeda in 1982), these ocean currents, the OHC, and the OHF will increase in intensity.

There is no need to look to the atmosphere for where this is going.

That is a waste of dwindling research money and time.

Stay focused on CT and h^O to track OHC and OHF.

It is easier, so long as we keep producing in situ measurements of temperature (T), practical salinity (SP), and depth.

What needs to be added is deeper, and more wide-spread measurement expeditions and research.

VI. Why We Need

Focused Research

The despotic minority has taken over the U.S. Senate and the Administration (Inhofe's One Man Troofiness Crusade).

They are following the lead of Oil-Qaeda (The Authoritarianism of Climate Change).

Their mindless mission is to change our existing law, which is:

"Based on respected scientific opinion that a well-documented rise in global temperatures and attendant climatological and environmental changes have resulted from a significant increase in the atmospheric concentration of “greenhouse gases,” a group of private organizations petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to begin regulating the emissions of four such gases, including carbon dioxide, under §202(a)(1) of the Clean Air Act, which requires that the EPA “shall by regulation prescribe . . . standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class . . . of new motor vehicles . . . which in [the EPA Administrator’s] judgment cause[s], or contribute[s] to, air pollution . . . reasonably . . . anticipated to endanger public health or welfare,” 42 U. S. C. §7521(a)(1). The Act defines “air pollutant” to include “any air pollution agent . . . , including any physical, chemical . . . substance . . . emitted into . . . the ambient air.” §7602(g). EPA ultimately denied the petition, reasoning that (1) the Act does not authorize it to issue mandatory regulations to address global climate change, and (2) even if it had the authority to set greenhouse gas emission standards, it would have been unwise to do so at that time because a causal link between greenhouse gases and the increase in global surface air temperatures was not unequivocally established.
...
Massachusetts and other state and local governments, sought review in the D. C. Circuit [... which held...] that the EPA Administrator properly exercised his discretion in denying the rulemaking petition.
...
[Supreme Court Conclusion:] The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion."

(Global Warming Induced Climate Change Is A Matter of Law). That Dredd Blog post quoted a U.S. Supreme Court case: Massachusetts v. EPA, 127 S. Ct. 1438 (2007).

VII. Closing Comments

There is a monumental effort to slow down, thwart, and eradicate climate change research (Trump’s Cuts In Climate-Change Research Spark a Global Scramble For Funds).

That effort is radically accelerating:

"President Trump has rolled back environmental regulations, pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord, brushed aside dire predictions about the effects of climate change, and turned the term 'global warming' into a punch line rather than a prognosis.

Now, after two years spent unraveling the policies of his predecessors, Mr. Trump and his political appointees are launching a new assault.

In the next few months, the White House will complete the rollback of the most significant federal effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, initiated during the Obama administration. It will expand its efforts to impose Mr. Trump’s hard-line views on other nations, building on his retreat from the Paris accord and his recent refusal to sign a communiqué to protect the rapidly melting Arctic region unless it was stripped of any references to climate change.

And, in what could be Mr. Trump’s most consequential action yet, his administration will seek to undermine the very science on which climate change policy rests."
...
"As a result, parts of the federal government will no longer fulfill what scientists say is one of the most urgent jobs of climate science studies: reporting on the future effects of a rapidly warming planet and presenting a picture of what the earth could look like by the end of the century if the global economy continues to emit heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution from burning fossil fuels.

The attack on science is underway throughout the government. In the most recent example, the White House-appointed director of the United States Geological Survey, James Reilly, a former astronaut and petroleum geologist, has ordered that scientific assessments produced by that office use only computer-generated climate models that project the impact of climate change through 2040, rather than through the end of the century, as had been done previously."

(Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science, emphasis added). Now you can see that "The blob" is an apt metaphor describing the despotic minority (How To Identify The Despotic Minority, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

If we do not stop the despotic minority, they will stop us.

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"Time Has Come Today"
(by The Chambers Brothers)

"Time has come today
Young hearts can go their way
Can't put it off another day
And I don't care what the others say
'Cause they say we don't listen anyway
Time has come today, Hey!
The rules have changed today, Hey!
I have no place to stay, Hey!
And I'm thinkin' about the subway, Hey!
Love has gone away, Hey!
And tears have come and gone, Hey!
Oh my God, I have to run, Hey!
I have no home, Hey!
I have no home, Hey!
Now the time has come, Time!
There's no place to run, Time!
Might get burned up by the sun, Time!"

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