In Search Of Ocean Heat - 5

Fig. 1 OHC and OHF

I. About

This series is about a serious search being undertaken by ocean modelers, oceanographers, and researchers (In Search Of Ocean Heat, 2, 3, 4).

It is the sometimes frantic scientific search for ocean heat content (OHC) and ocean heat flux (OHF).

The search is more difficult than one would surmise at first blush, because a good many of those partaking in the search do not know what "ocean heat" is.

In some ways it is like the Supreme Court Justice who wrote in an opinion that he might not know how to describe a contract, but he knew one when he saw one.

Another one of the Supremes said the same thing about pornography in another case.

The general sense in terms of "ocean heat" is about the same or at least similar as those two examples: "I may not be able to describe what 'ocean heat' is, but I know it when I feel it" (see the theme song at the end of this post).

II. The Fairly Recent Discovery

Of What "Ocean Heat" Is

Fig. 2a West Indian Ocean, area "A"

Fig. 2b East Indian Ocean, area "B"

Fig. 2c Ross Sea, area "C"

Fig. 2d Amundsen Sea, area "D"

Fig. 2e Bellingshausen Sea, area "E"

Fig. 2f Weddell Sea, area "F"

A very experienced "heat scientist" who has no feelings one way or another about "heat" put it this way:

"The quest in this work is to derive a variable that is conservative, independent of adiabatic changes in pressure, and whose conservation equation is the oceanic version of the first law of thermodynamics. That is, we seek a variable whose advection and diffusion can be interpreted as the advection and diffusion of ‘‘heat.’’ In other words, we seek to answer the question, ‘‘what is heat’’ in the ocean?
...
The variable that is currently used for this purpose in ocean models is potential temperature referenced to the sea surface, θ, but it does not accurately represent the conservation of heat because of (i) the variation of specific heat with salinity and (ii) the dependence of the total differential of enthalpy on variations of salinity.
...
For example, an increase in pressure of 10⁷ Pa (1000 dbar), without exchange of heat or salt, causes a change in enthalpy that is equivalent to about 2.5ЊC. We show in this paper that in contrast to enthalpy, potential enthalpy does have the desired properties to embody the meaning of the first law.
...
Present treatment of oceanic heat fluxes is clearly inconsistent. Ocean models treat potential temperature as a conservative variable and calculate the heat flux across oceanic sections using a constant value of heat capacity. By contrast, heat flux through sections of observed data is often calculated using a variable specific heat multiplying the flux of potential temperature per unit area (Bryan 1962; Macdonald et al. 1994; Saunders 1995; Bacon and Fofonoff 1996). Here it is shown that the theoretical justification of this second approach is flawed on three counts. While the errors involved are small, it is clearly less than satisfactory to have conflicting practices in the observational and modeling parts of physical oceanography, particularly as an accurate and convenient solution can be found.
...
it is perfectly valid to talk of potential enthalpy, h⁰, as the 'heat content'”

(In Search Of Ocean Heat, quoting McDougall 2003). As a student of Josiah Willard Gibbs who "wrote the book" on OHC (The World According To Measurements - 12), McDougall et alia persuaded various and sundry world oceanography institutions to adapt a better thermodynamic perspective concerning what "ocean heat" is (TEOS Org).

Too many in the general scientific community here and there seem to have mixed feelings about OHC, and so the first sentence on that site causes less than "in sync" reactions:

"This site is the official source of information about the Thermodynamic Equation Of Seawater - 2010 (TEOS-10), and the way in which it should be used."

(ibid, emphasis added). For almost a decade now, conversations such as "how do you feel about Gibbs and TEOS-10 George ... I have mixed feelings about 'ocean heat' Bob" crop up and keep the current ocean models way too error prone concerning ocean heat.

This is exactly what McDougall went on to point out in the paper I referred to above:

"present ocean models contain typical errors of 0.1°C and maximum errors of 1.4°C in their temperature because of the neglect of the nonconservative production of potential temperature ... and potential temperature, rests on an incorrect theoretical foundation ..."

(ibid, McDougall 2003). In concert with McDougall, a very recent paper pointed out some major "ocean heat" related developments in Antarctica.

That paper sorta points out that current ocean models might as well have been searching for ghosts:

"Such complexities in ice-ocean interaction are not currently represented in coupled ice sheet/ocean models"

"Ice shelf melt at A exceeds values used in numerical ice sheet/ocean models by factors of 2 to 3"

"preferential melt channels 1 to 2 km wide and newly formed cavities less than 100 m in height would require ocean models to operate at the subkilometer horizontal scale and sub–100 m vertical scale to replicate the melt processes that form the cavities, which is a challenge"

"the fact that peak melt rates in the main trunk are two to three times higher than those in models limits the ability of models to reproduce ice retreat at those locations"

"ocean-induced ice melt occurs over a 2.5-km-wide grounding zone, whereas numerical ice sheet models use fixed grounding lines, i.e., not affected by tidal mixing ... with zero melt applied at the grounding line"

"ice shelf melt rates may be lower along retrograde slopes than those along prograde slopes, another observation to explore in detail with ice-ocean models"

"We conclude that the cavity shape, including bed slope, bumps, and hollows in the bed, influences the access of ocean heat to the glacier and ocean-induced melt rates"

(The Ghost Photons - 3, quoting P. Milillo et al. 2019). That paper also points out the power that the "trained eye" has while using sophisticated satellite data.

It beats using 1940 bi-planes, like TEOS-10 beats EOS-80.

III. Rich Research Area

Why waste rich research areas by using archaic software?

A typical contemporary paper these days does not mention TEOS-10, McDougall, thermodynamics, Gibbs, or what OHC actually is, but points out something like this:

"Recent estimates ... suggest that some 93% of the EEI [Earth’s Energy Imbalance] is going into the ocean, where it is manifested as changes in ocean heat content (OHC) ... However, attempts to track the flow of energy through the climate system and close Earth’s energy budget have run into discrepancies ... and substantial differences exist among estimates of the energy flows ..."

(Insights into Earth’s Energy Imbalance from Multiple Sources). When a paper does not define what OHC is, does not mention the word "thermodynamics", does not consider that the ocean is composed of water molecules that harbor the "ocean heat", nor explain the quantum physics of photons of infrared radiation, I have to wonder why.

But I do not wonder why they are in error, nor am I surprised that those ocean models are error prone as McDougall 2003 and P. Milillo et al. 2019 point out in Section II above.

The official TEOS-10 (2010) which replaced the obsolete EOS-80 (1980) would help them if only they would stop ignoring it and start using it.

The WOD database, OMG database, SOCCOM database, WHI database would also help.

Listening to Gibbs, who is perhaps the most influential historical voice in ocean thermodynamics (encapsulated in TEOS-10) would also help:

"Albert Einstein called him 'the greatest mind in American history.' Gibbs’s studies of thermodynamics and discoveries in statistical mechanics paved the way for many of Einstein’s later discoveries."

(American Physical Society or APSloane). Especially since "encapsulated" means:

"TEOS-10 is based on a Gibbs function formulation from which all thermodynamic properties of seawater (density, enthalpy, entropy sound speed, etc.) can be derived in a thermodynamically consistent manner."

(Thermodynamic Equation Of Seawater - 2010, emphasis added). Or they can continue to flop around like the scientists who forgot about gravity in the ocean realm, as pointed out by Woodward 1888; scientists who therefore could not figure out some major variations in sea level change (NASA Busts The Ghost).

After they get a grip on the quantum mechanical aspects of ocean thermodynamics, Antarctica will be a rich area for doing ocean heat research for them (Antarctica 2.0, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 [& supplements A, B, C, D, E, F], 7;  The Ghost Plumes - 4 [Appendices A, B, C, D, E, F]; Mysterious Zones of Antarctica, 2, 3, 4).

IV. Today's Graphs

Today's graphs (Fig. 2a - Fig. 2f) are all in this post (no appendices).

They have the same "A-F" categorization representing different areas of Antarctica as previous posts and appendices have had.

Each letter ("A" - "F") signifies an area around the continent of Antarctica as the posts listed in Section III did.

Recent Dredd Blog graphs have tended to show the proportionality of the TEOS-10 variables (e.g. Patterns: Conservative Temperature & Potential Enthalpy; Appendix One, Appendix Two, Appendix Three, Appendix-Four, Appendix-Five).

Today, the graphs show that even the proportionality of the seawater quantity necessary to melt one kg of tidewater glacier ice is in proportion to the Potential Enthalpy of the ambient tidewater.

As the ocean heat content per kg of seawater goes up, the quantity of seawater needed to melt a kg of glacier ice goes down.

Ocean heat content up = ocean ice quantity down (sounds reasonable eh?).

V. Closing Comments

Antarctica has hundreds of feet of potential sea level rise ... which is way, way more than enough to destroy current civilization as we know it (Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch - 9).

It behooves us to use the existing reliable nomenclature about ocean heat so that we can avoid the self-inflicted legacy of the Titanic (Good Nomenclature: A Matter of Life and Death).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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The ocean heat feelings of the moment ...

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The State of The Onion Script - 3

How did he know?

Preznit Blush had a feeling he would be missed some day.

Preznit Brump seems to be on a mission to make Preznit Blush seem to have been prescient.

The theme of the state of the onion script (SOTOS) tonight is "where in the world is wall dough?" with the more likely reply being "where did you get this sticky idea to demand play dough or zap zap until Amurka is a grape again?"

Meanwhile, many are saying it would be better to miss SOTOS altogether (Dept. of Justice Conspiracy Theories, 2, 3, 4).

The previous post in this series is not here it is here.

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A Brump preview of the SOTOS ...

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Hot, Warm, & Cold Thermal Facts: Tidewater-Glaciers - 8

Fig. 1 Thwaites Glacier Dynamics

I. Warm as Ice

The laws of thermodynamics inform us that hot flows to cold (Thermodynamics).

In the deep ocean where it is dark, this flow includes radiation in the form of infrared spectrum photons which radiate out of cold seawater molecules into colder glacier ice molecules (The Ghost Photons - 2).

If the 2nd law of thermodynamics that tells us "hot flows to cold" was wrong, as deniers are tempted to say, the photo at Fig. 2 would be a trick of your lying eyes.

The river of melt water on the surface of the Antarctic glacier shown at Fig. 2  would become frozen as the vast coldness underneath it spontaneously flowed into it.

 

Fig. 2  Thwaites Glacier (~160 km,~100 mi wide)

Instead, the river water actually cuts into the ice of the glacier and the river gets deeper and/or wider as long as more ice melt water from upstream enters the river to perpetuate the flow.

Essentially, the melt water river is composed of ice warmed into water by photons of "heat" from the sun entering the glacial ice molecules ("Close to half of total solar radiation received at the surface of Earth is infrared").

That is, the river of melt water has "heat" in it which came from sunlight, and that "heat" continues to flow into the glacial ice, now indirectly from cold water rather than directly from sunlight.

The photon radiation from the melt water also weakens and melts the glacier ice (some of the river's "heat" flows into the ice under and beside it).

Fig. 3 Hadopelagic (all WOD Zones)

If the melt water flow were to stop or slow down, the "heat" in the water would flow out into the ice, so eventually the once flowing water would once again become ice and disappear (because no new melt water would be replenishing it) until another warm day came along.

We tend to say that the river is composed of "warm" melt water, but that inclination would become a popped bubble if we swam in that "warm melt water."

If we stayed in it even a relatively short while we could die from hypothermia (Hypothermia Table).

Even though melt water and ocean water making contact with the glaciers of Antarctica could kill us by hypothermia, there are a sufficient number of infrared wavelength photons to radiate "heat" (infrared photons) into the glacial ice and convert the ice into water (The Ghost Photons).

II. Graph

The graph at Fig. 3 is constructed from all in situ measurements in the World Ocean Database, SOCCOM datasets, NASA OMG datasets, and Woods Hole Institute datasets that record the temperature, salinity, and depth in the oceans.

The photon wavelength value I use in computations (e.g. Fig. 3) is 1300 nm (1.3 x 10^-6 m) which is low energy infrared photons (they can be as high as x 10^-4).

The exception is where the Potential Enthalpy (h^O) value is zero or less than zero, which means situations where there are no photons of infrared photons ("heat") in the seawater molecules (those in situ measurements are not used in this specialized case).

The graph is of the deepest ocean depths (Hadopelagic).

The upper-left pane is Conservative Temperature, the upper-right pane is Potential Enthalpy ("ocean heat content"), the lower-left pane is the amount of seawater in kilograms (kg) required to have enough IR photons to melt a kg of glacier ice, and the lower right pane is the number of moles of IR photon energy (in Joules) in the molecules of a kg of seawater.

Notice that the patterns in all but the lower-left pane match (thermodynamic proportion), and that the pattern of the lower-left pane is the opposite pattern, but still in proportion (kg of water decreases as the other three increase, and vice versa).

The point being made is that the ocean heat content (OHC) and flux depends on the amount of photons in ocean water molecules (everywhere and at all depths).

III. Closing Comments

This is part of my criticism of the half-truth used for the foundation of the "thermal expansion is the main or a main cause of sea level rise", which said half-truth is that when heat is added to water it always expands (see On Thermal Expansion & Thermal Contraction - 41).

The ghost water, ghost plumes, and ghost photons supply all the melt water necessary to replace the imaginary expansion which that erroneous thermal expansion hypothesis sets forth.

Thermal expansion and contraction induced sea level change is a minor part of the sea level change reality.

The previous post in this series is here.