Is the ocean broken?

Will, the purpose of the whole scientific enterprise is to learn new things about the natural world. If a scientist claims to have discovered something new, something you, with your minimal education in physics (or whatever) don't understand, a discovery involving multiple other scientists, a discovery significant enough to be peer reviewed and published in a prestigious science journal -- aren't you even slightly curious to see what they might know that you don't know? Isn't it presumptuous on your part to conclude that you know so much as to be able to render a judgement of "incompetent" or worse, without even reading the original study?

This type of arrogant foolishness I have come to expect from some on this thread, but I hoped you might not let your brain decay to oatmeal. (Not that I have anything against oatmeal; I eat it almost every morning. <laugh> )

If you read the SCIENCE article I think you will find that they are not attempting to overturn the laws of physics.

 

Perhaps they are not overturning the laws of physics. It doesn't just 'not' make sense to me, it appears to defy the logic and laws as I have come to understand them. It isn't that I think they are attempting to overturn the laws of physics; I think they are not thinking it through because they have decided on the answer before the data lead them there.

Do I think I'm better then them? Of course. I think the way I think because I think it is the best way to think. I choose, what I believe is, the better choice. Anyone else who thinks differently doesn't, by such an assumption, think as well as I do. Is this arrogance? Sure, but how can it be any other way? If I thought there was a better way to think, of course that's the way I would choose to think. Could I be wrong? Of course, and when I discover I'm wrong, I don't cling to the wrong notions out of pride. I adjust and once again move to the belief that I have chosen the best path and all dissenting thinkers are inferior.

This, of course puts me right back to the point of arrogant superiority. It's a vicious cycle.

All this, however doesn't mean anything about what I know. I know nothing. I feel I have read their presentation with a willing attitude, but it failed to fit through the filters of my thinking. Maybe they are right and I am wrong, it happens. I will never take the position that they are more right than I am just because they are the experts. If I feel uncertain of my own knowledge, I will happily defer to the experts, but if I am sure of myself, then I am sure of myself.

In this case, they present me with a scenario that I feel certain I understand. They are either wrong or not sharing the entire picture, as far as I am concerned. It is also possible that I am simply not understanding their words. However, I also sense a political message in their conclusion. Maybe they are just presenting pure science, but it doesn't feel that way to me.

A condition of cooling, such as water in an ice tray in a freezer will freeze because the cold of the freezer represents an energy sink into which the heat energy in the water will move. That energy dissipates from the outer surface of the water to the freezer, from inner surface to outer surface and, again out to the freezer. Take the ice tray out of the freezer and the liquid inner surface will continue to get cooler only as long as the outer surface remains colder than the interior. Once the outer surface reaches a point warmer than the interior of the ice cube, the interior of the ice cube will not get cooler. There is no longer an energy sink to give its energy up to.

What cooler waters or other substances is the "cooling" deep Pacific giving its energy up to? Not the surface, where the "Little Ice Age" supposedly started because of a cycle of decreased Solar output. They said the waters deep in the Pacific haven't seen the surface in centuries. Supposedly, that is why it's colder, it is "Little Ice Age" surface water. Sure, I can see that, but it isn't just that. The cooler water migrated there since the HMS Challenger, so it has measured a cooling trend, but in order for it to continue cooling, due to the "Little Ice Age" That cooler water has to already exist. Where is it hiding? Why is that reservoir of excessively colder water not losing its energy to the surface or the surrounding warmer waters?

When I first dated my wife, her father, hearing that I was suppose to be smart, asked me to explain why hot water freezes faster than cold water. I told him it doesn't. He said, "Bull! If you take a tray of hot water and put it in the freezer, it will freeze in less time than a tray of cold water."

You know what? It will. Not if you put it outside in the Winter though. Outside, the colder one freezes faster. Also, if you put both trays in the freezer together, the colder one freezes faster. But, if you put a tray of hot water in the freezer and time it to frozen, it often reaches freezing in less time than a cold tray of water will. Why? The freezer has a thermostat. Hot water trips the thermostat and starts the compressor. Cold water doesn't and thus, the tray of hot water appears to freeze faster than the tray of cold water.

There is a piece missing here. I can't follow their logic to see the same conclusion that the "Little Ice Age" is still causing the deep Pacific Ocean to continue cooling. No, something else more current is at play here.

-Will

 

For you Hoyte.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2021/08/20/puerto-rico-bananas/

-Will

 

Thanks, Will. My bananas are doing great.

 

Will, thanks for your thoughtful response. Have you read the full research paper that I gave a link to, or only the Electroverse article? You should never dismiss research published in SCIENCE or NATURE based simply on what some journalist wrote up in a publication meant for general public consumption.

 

I did not see your link, but I read the Harvard abstract and synopsis in addition to the Elecroverse article. The Electroverse article clearly took liberties with the research. I didn't include the other link because the original point was to show that examples of the publication of alternative scientific conclusions are out there. I commented that I didn't believe the conclusions so it wouldn't be thought that I supported the conclusion of an article I didn't agree with. I wasn't actually trying to make a point about anything the article said, only that there were articles that could say anything, even in legitimate science-based sources, including Harvard University.

-Will

 

This isn't the only way to think. It's good to be on the lookout for balderdash, but it is also helpful to realize that even the smartest human knows but a small fraction of what all of humankind knows. If you are so certain that your own knowledge is vastly superior to even subject-matter experts, than your chances of improving yourself are greatly diminished.

I am again disappointed that you didn't read the actual study. It seems stupid to disagree with a subject-matter expert based solely on a synopsis of their argument.

The Little Ice Age and 20th-century deep Pacific cooling https://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6422/70

I think you might find some of the clues you are missing in paragraphs four and five of the main body of the article.

 

Rain on Greenland ice sheet signals climate change risk

• On August 14 rain fell at the highest point on Greenland's ice sheet—possibly for the first time
  
• Temperatures have risen above freezing at the peak of the sheet only nine times in the past 2,000 years
  
• Three of those events have been in the past 10 years—but on the previous two occasions, in 2012 and 2019, there was no rain
• The rain comes after a summer in which northern Greenland has experienced record-setting temperatures of more than 20 degrees
  
• The melting of the Greenland ice sheet is expected to contribute to the overall rise in sea levels by 10 to 18 centimetres by 2100, 60 percent faster than the previous estimate

 

‘Sticky questions’ raised by study on coral reefs

• A study of two Kiribati reefs found coral in more polluted and high traffic water handled extreme heat events better than a more remote, untouched reef
  
• Because of El Niño-Southern Oscillation, which causes ocean temperatures to fluctuate along the equator from year-to-year, these coral reefs experience heat stress more often than reefs in other parts of the world
• The polluted reefs were dominated by a weedy species of coral, Porites rus, which flourishes in waters with high nutrient concentrations from runoff
  
• However, the corals in unpolluted water bleached because of these same high ocean temperatures, and the last surviving variety of coral on the reef were then devoured by a gigantic, poisonous starfish species
  
• Marine protected areas (MPAs) are the most common tool that scientists recommend to protect reefs from human-caused stressors, including climate change. But if MPAs create the conditions where more sensitive corals can thrive -- by reducing local disturbances such as fishing or pollution, then it could backfire by making those reefs more vulnerable to heat stress.

The study was published in PLOS ONE

 

Again you assume climate change to be "a human-caused stressor".
Prove it.

 

Science doesn't do "proofs," but if you were actually interested in the topic, rather than just being a chronically stupid troll, you could start to educate yourself here.

(Cue Yob's next launch of a hair-0n-fire soshulist rant)

IPCCs Sixth Assessment Report

The Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis is now out. The report addresses the most up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system and climate change, bringing together the latest advances in climate science, and combining multiple lines of evidence from paleoclimate, observations, process understanding, and global and regional climate simulations.
​

 

You remind me of a character from a Mark Twain novel.

 

When coral dies, tiny invertebrates boom. This could dramatically change the food web on the Great Barrier Reef

• Microscopic invertebrates are the main food source for approximately 70% of fish species on the Great Barrier Reef
• When corals die, their skeletons are quickly overgrown by fine, thread-like “turfing algae” (until the coral skeletons completely break down)
  
• Dead coral hosts 100 times more microscopic invertebrates than healthy coral
  
• This means up to 100 times more fish food is available on reefs dominated by dead coral compared with live, healthy coral
  
• As corals reefs continue to decline, we can expect increased productivity at the base level of reef food webs, with a shift from larger crabs and shrimp to small harpacticoid copepods
  
• We might expect higher numbers of fish such as wrasses, cardinalfish, triggerfish, and dragonets, with species preferring the smallest epifauna most likely to flourish

The study was published in Marine Biology.

 

For Copepods, there is No Free Lunch when Coping with Climate Change

• Copepods are small marine animals that are abundant, widely dispersed, and serve as major structural components of the ocean’s food web
  
• Prior studies with copepods, across one or a few generations, showed they are not particularly sensitive to pH changes
  
• This new study not only looked at adaptation across 25 generations, it also considered both ocean warming and acidification (OWA)
  
• The first generation exposed to new OWA conditions suffered extreme reductions of over 50% of population
• By the third generation, the population seemed to have mostly recovered
  
• However, by the 12th generation, the researchers began to see declines once again.
• Though the copepods were able to adapt, the adaptation was limited because fitness was never fully recovered

The research was published in Nature Climate Change

 

Copepods are nasty little animals with vicious bad habits.