New Study: CO2 Effects On Global Ocean Temperatures ‘Impossible’ To Measure
A new study reveals the limit of the greenhouse gas-induced longwave radiative impact extends only to the ~10 μm (0.01 mm) skin layer — the ocean-air interface — and no deeper
Determining the sea surface temperature (SST) variation at this skin depth is critical to any attempt to quantify or calculate the impact of greenhouse gases like CO2 on ocean temperatures.
Yet scientists admit such temperature variations are “impossible” to measure at this depth.
Instead, temperature variations in the skin layer must be “schemed” (i.e., guessed) using models that only begin at the 500 to 1,000 mm (0.5 to 1.0 m) layer depths.
This means, of course, that CO2’s effects on ocean temperatures are also impossible to measure.
“SST right at the interface, which is actually impossible to measure”
“…the too-course vertical resolution does not allow to direct modeling skin SST (the first model layer being only around 0.5 – 1.0 m thick”…). Therefore, one must use schemes to reconstruct skin SST variations.”
The authors of the paper do not even mention greenhouse gas-induced changes as factors affecting – much less driving – variations in ocean heat flux at the interface.
The only causal factors mentioned in determining energy changes in the ocean-air system critical to “global warming” are variations in solar radiation and wind speed.
“The net energy flux across the air-sea interface results from four contributions: the net solar radiation, latent and sensible heat fluxes, and the net thermal radiation. The last three contributions depend on SST and have a direct impact in determining ocean heat uptake…”
“The skin SST diurnal warming amplitude increases under low surface winds (smaller than 2 m s−1 ) and intense solar radiation (higher than typical daily peaks, around 900 W/m²) conditions…”
Apologists for anthropogenic global warming (AGW) have advanced the hypothesis that greenhouse gas-induced changes in downwelling longwave radiation (DLWR) can affect changes in the thermal gradient at the skin layer depths, thus reducing or enhancing cooling.
However, in a blog article he composed for RealClimate back in 2006, Dr. Peter Minnett reported the results of a 2004 experiment using cloud-induced DLWR changes as a proxy for CO2-induced DLWR changes.
Clouds were used as a proxy because CO2’s longwave effects are too small to detect, as they are acknowledged to be 50 times smaller than cloud longwave effects.
The results of the experiment revealed the thermal gradient change was merely 0.002°C (two one-thousandths of a degree) for a ~100 W/m² DLWR change in cloudiness.
Because cloud forcing is 50 times larger than CO2 forcing (~2 W/m² since 1750), CO2’s impact, dividing the 0.002°C cloud value by 50, is thus 0.00004°C. This is four one-hundred-thousandths of a degree.
This specified quantification marks how ridiculous it is to believe that CO2 can be a causal mechanism – much less a driving mechanism – for global ocean temperature changes.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Kennth,
You wrote: “Instead, temperature variations in the skin layer must be “schemed” (i.e., guessed) using models that only begin at the 500 to 1,000 mm (0.5 to 1.0 m) layer depths.”
Do you not know about “infrared (IR( thermometers” which measure the SKIN temperature or a liquid or solid surface? But not the temperature of a gas because a gas has no surface. Near midday one can often measure that a dark solid surface can be tens of degrees greater than the conventionally measured air temperature. This is evidence that the atmosphere does not absorb solar radiation of any wavelength.
The exchange of energy between solid or liquid surfaces requires direct contact of the gas molecules with a surface whose surface temperature is different from the surface temperature. During nighttime, when the atmosphere appears cloudless, surface temperatures can be cooler than the atmosphere’s temperature measured about 4.5 above the ground’s surface. Simple observations and no guessing involved.
Have a good day
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Kent
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I have not personnally used it but, NASA now offers multi-scale ultra-high resolution SST data via the web. It’s pretty coarse resolution (1km ground sampling distance). The surface skin is pretty much all that satellite sensors can measure. So, the researchers could have tried including it in their analysis. It would not be able to support the narrative as the measurements don’t cover a large enough temporal period.
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