In response to my earlier post about Global Warming, commenter JohnnyB pointed out the obvious:
Gotta consider that the ocean is very big and very deep. The temp near the bottom of the ocean is near freezing without the help of melting ice, so there would be no net change.
In fact, Johnny, I have considered that fact, but we’re only talking about a couple of degrees of water temp which can have a tremendous impact on the world climate. And this is exactly why I asked the question in that previous post: What if climate change–Global Warming–is in fact cooling the world’s oceans by dumping massive amounts of glacial melt water into the mix? So I did a little more digging, via Google, and came up with an NPR article in which a NASA scientist who monitors ocean temperatures worldwide is confused by the fact that the oceans’ temperatures have dropped over the last five years.
“There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant,” Willis says.
What really astounds me is that, while the article briefly speculates as to where the heat is going (out into space is one theory) nobody even considers the really obvious possibility (to me, at least): that the oceans are rising due to an influx of glacial melt water and are cooling as a result. How can that be missed, or, if it hasn’t been missed, why doesn’t any one speculate about it or even offer to debunk the theory? Are we so focused on the warming aspect of climate change that we’re totally missing the possibility that Global Warming could actually eventually result in Global Cooling?
In recent years, heat has actually been flowing out of the ocean and into the air. This is a feature of the weather phenomenon known as El Nino. So it is indeed possible the air has warmed but the ocean has not. But it’s also possible that something more mysterious is going on.
Something mysterious indeed. He even points out that the half-inch ocean level increase can be accredited to melt water:
Willis says some of this water is apparently coming from a recent increase in the melting rate of glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica.
Basically, the entire article lends credence to my theory without ever speculating about it. Billions of gallons of glacial melt water floods into the ocean and–mysteriously–the ocean mean temperature cools. Stay tuned.
If you liked that post, then try these...
The Dark Force of the Universal Construct on January 22nd, 2008
Global Warming on March 5th, 2008
Once Again, Science Disregards the Obvious... on July 20th, 2009
Large Hadron Collider on April 14th, 2008
Sleeping with Mother Earth on June 23rd, 2008
2 Comments
(Technically we are still in an Ice Age, at the end of a period of stable warm temperatures – it’s now the longest warming period of the current ice age that we’ve been able to discover, so I’m assuming here you’re talking about major glaciation at the poles)
Well, the event of la Nina is what is currently happening. Both la Nina and el Nino are pressure valve mechanisms that are the equatorial Pacific’s attempt to equalize temperatures. Sort of like how hurricanes/cyclones are responses to release the energy captured by surface waters. Then there is the theory of glacial melt from Greenland is threatening to shut down the Gulf Stream. If that would happen, it would be disastrous for Europe and the Maritimes (what was shown in The Day After Tomorrow, but think of a decade instead of a few minutes). Global Warming can also be a cause of colder winters. During the periods of intense glaciation the winters are actually very mild (with temps in the upper 20s). It’s the summers that are much cooler (not much warmer than mid 40s) which allow the glaciers to build and advance.
Good info, Steve, thanks. It’s refreshing to hear a calm comment amidst all the din. I just get tired of hearing the same doomsday rhetoric that seems to be flowing from all channels right now. Not that things aren’t shaping up to be bad, just perhaps in a different line than people are talking about right now. And yes, I was referring to major glaciation, you had it right from the get go.