Posted on 11/21/2006 6:09:56 AM PST by presidio9
No -- just convection! If you take a cold glass of iced tea out on the porch on a hot summer day, what happens to the temperature of the iced tea? (It doesn't happen because the sun is shining on the glass of tea!)
The oceans are a lot more complex than that; they give up heat in certain areas and absorb it elsewhere (tropics), but the atmospheric temperature is what determines the oceanic temperature.
The marketplace will decide based on cost effectiveness, but the federal government can certainly provide R&D incentives.
I say admiringly that you have a fairly bulletproof position. If you and I were alive at the turn of the next century, and if the global temperature is 3 deg. C higher, with ecosystems collapsing planet-wide and the Greenland ice sheet half melted away, you could still say "I'm still pretty worried about the next continental glaciation! We'd better keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere to ward that off!"
IF there is a potential abrupt transition into the next glaciation that would happen, caused by undefinable trigger points, being concerned about when it will happen is about as useful as being concerned about when the Yellowstone caldera will erupt again. Sure it's useful to examine what might cause it -- but someone is going to have to pony up some pretty impressive evidence that 10 generations removed have to worry about it happening before 500 years have passed.
High: 57 degrees Fahrenheit. Low: 27 degrees Fahrenheit.
I can be more specific if you indicate what week you're interested in (1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th week of May).
High: 61 degrees Fahrenheit. Low: 37 degrees Fahrenheit.
Sorry for any confusion.
You might be missing a rather large source of incident energy.
Surface IR? Only through absorption by stuff in the water column, I think (I may not be following your meaning here).
What is by far the largest source of incident energy? That's your last hint. Miss this one and you get an F.
Well, the simplistic answer is the Sun. Sea ice is apparently affected by increasing downward longwave radiation, but the warming of the oceans is still primarily caused by energy flux from the atmosphere.
You need to learn more about physics - quantum mechanics, etc. I'd also recommend a course in heat flow.
The real answer is, the greatest energy flux into the oceans is from the higher frequency light spectrum, mainly vis and UV. Has to do with the attenuation factor of water versus wavelength. IR only penetrates just beneath the surface (a few microns to one centimeter, for all intents and purposes). That quickly mixes out into the near surface layer. There is very little heat moving past the thermocline. Most transport of the minor increase in energy from IR is lateral and even back into the air (especially given turbulance, waves, wind fetch, etc). UV and vis penetrate from 1 to a couple hundred feet (depending on turbidity). As goes the incident flux of such spectral bands, goes the heat content of the water.
I don't see a problem with that. But the reason that the oceans get warmer as the globe (atmosphere/surface) gets warmer is not primarily due to surface irradiance. Give me a couple of days to illustrate my point.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.