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posted by martyb on Wednesday June 19 2019, @07:24AM   Printer-friendly
from the Hey!-What-you-lookin'-at? dept.

Groundbreaking climate change discovery made by, sigh, Boaty McBoatface

Great Job Internet

Climate change is real, and many would argue the most serious existing threat to humanity. Today, British scientists announced a major new discovery about how climate change is affecting sea levels that will most likely cause climate scientists to reconfigure their projection models. This discovery was made due to the efforts of, ugh, Boaty McBoatface.

[...] Now, as part of the Attenborough's maiden voyage, Boaty McBoatface has made a major discovery, published in the journal PNAS, for which we must unfortunately give it credit. In short, the submersible traversed the waters of Antarctica measuring temperature, salinity, and current. What it found was that increasingly strong winds in the Antarctic are causing cold water at the bottom of the ocean to mix with warmer water from the middle levels. That, in turn, is causing overall ocean temperatures to rise, which contributes to rising sea levels. Previously unaware of this process, climate scientists will now need to adjust their sea-level forecasts.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 19 2019, @11:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 19 2019, @11:15PM (#857657)

    If they mix cold water with warm water that are both part of the same system how does the overall temperature rise?

    Because if the temperature at the surface lowers, it will lose thermal energy a lower rate, because the rate of blackbody emission is proportional to the temperature at the surface raised to the fourth power. Similarly for conductive heat transfer to the air, the rate of which is proportional to the temperature difference at the interface.

    Ocean heating from sunlight will not depend on the surface temperature, and this is likely the primary mechanism which heats the oceans (with conduction from warmer air being a negligible factor). So if the ocean is more thoroughly mixed, the surface temperature will lower (meaning the ocean sheds its thermal energy at a lower rate), but the rate of energy being added to the ocean stays the same. Therefore, the temperature of the ocean on average will rise, until it reaches thermal equilibrium (power in = power out).

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