On Thermal Expansion & Thermal Contraction - 47

Fig. 1 World Ocean Database

I. Introduction

This series confronts one of the half-truths in current Warming Commentariat reports concerning the issue of thermal expansion of water (salt water and non-salt water).

A lot of research and time went into establishing the reality (and lack thereof) concerning this subject (On Thermal Expansion & Thermal Contraction, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46; On The More Robust Sea Level Computation Techniques, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

The graphic at Fig. 1 is a surface depiction of many billions of dollars worth of many more billions of temperature, salinity, depth (and more) in situ measurements of the world's oceans (WOD Introduction, p. 23, PDF).

On Fig. 1 I have added red numerals to point out the latitude band "layers" which are featured in today's appendices (Conservative Temperature, Thermal Expansion).

There is a generalization about air temperatures which is that as you move north or south from the equator, the climate and the air temperatures tend to become progressively cooler.

Another generalization of that sort is that the deeper you go to measure ocean water temperatures that temperature becomes progressively cooler.

But even though there is some "truth" to those two generalizations, there is another generalization which (as this series has pointed out) is nothing more that a half-truth at best.

Trained seabird gathering deep data
for Warming Commentariat's "Deep
Ocean Research Project"

That generalization is "when heat is added to water, the water expands".

The reality, however, is that it depends on the temperature of the water at the time the heat is added, because at certain temperatures of "water" (including in the form of ice), adding heat will cause contraction instead of expansion (On Thermal Expansion & Thermal Contraction, Dredd Blog, 2016).

II. Exceptions Taken

Today's appendices point out these realms of generalizations using graphs featuring in situ measurements at up to thirty-three ocean depth levels.

The Conservative Temperature appendix uses red lines for the upper 300 meter depth levels, blue lines for the 400-1400 meter depth levels, and cyan lines for the 1500 meters on down depth levels.

The layers proceed upward (northerly) from the Equator layer 8, and downward (southerly) from the Equator layer 9.

The generality appears in the form of red lines being on top (meaning warmer) the closer one is to the Equator layers, but to the contrary they are on the bottom at the polar regions.

For example the Arctic regions have some blue and cyan lines near the top, but in layers 15 and 16, around the coast of Antarctica, the warm waters (blue and cyan colored lines - i.e. deepest waters) are clearly on top (meaning warmest are deepest).

III. What This Portends

A guest post on Dredd Blog a while back pointed out that a "new" ocean has come into focus New Ocean (Guest Post) in more ways than one.

What is "new" about it, among other things, is that the warmer water all around the coastline at the deeper depths is up against the glacial ice and is melting that ice (In Search Of Ocean Heat - 12).

IV. Closing Comments

When scientists look in the wrong places for meaning, they will end up with the wrong meaning.

They have (before the "new" ocean was discovered) been saying incorrectly for years that "thermal expansion" was the major cause of sea level rise.

The thermal expansion graphs for all the layers shown indicates a minor portion of sea level change is due to thermal factors. 

They never mention thermal contraction, which is clearly taking place about as much as the tiny thermal expansion is taking place.

Bottom line: what is causing the volume of the ocean to increase is the melting of the Cryosphere (it reminds me of the cop who asked "why do you rob banks?" which elicited the reply "because that is where the money is").

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

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