Return of 'ocean chimney' the size of Tasmania puzzles Antarctic scientists

PETER HANNAM

Last updated 12:24, October 15 2017

Professors James Renwick and Gary Wilson talk about a potential tipping point of unstoppable ice melt in Antarctica

A rare hole the size of Tasmania has opened up in the sea ice off Antarctica, enthralling scientists keen to understand its cause and the possible role of climate change in its formation.

Known as the Weddell Sea or Maud Rise Polynya, the ice-free zone appeared in September and has grown to as large as 80,000 square kilometres, according to the University of Toronto.
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Water vapour rises off the Antarctic ice sheet as a rare hole opens in the Antarctic winter sea ice

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Moore said the polynya was releasing about 800 watts of energy per square metre – equivalent to about 14 60-watt light bulbs blazing away day and night.

The Maud Rise provides an ideal location for the start of a mid-sea polynya. The rise is a mountain that climbs about 4000 metres to within 1200m of the surface, providing a ramp for relatively warm water flowing along the sea floor.
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www.stuff.co.nz...

A rare hole has opened up again in the Antarctic ice sheet (off the Antarctic peninsula) the size of Tasmania, and supposedly "scientists are puzzled". The last time something like this happened was in the 1970s.

But, if you watch the video and you hear Professor James Renwick describing what is happening he says and I quote:

Down in the deep ocean, you know you look down 1,000 meters deep and the oceans there are warming up a lot, and that's because... there is more.. heat coming in from....greenhouse gases, climate change/global warming...but that heat is getting pulled down to great depth because the oceans are so turbulent...

First of all, notice the pauses he makes as his brain is trying to process the lie he is making up about this being caused by "climate change/global warming". But the thing is, it takes a long time for heat to transfer down to 1,000 meters below the sea surface, and I mean a loooong time

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Although surface and deep waters are not well-mixed, they do mix gradually over hundreds of years through the movements of a global ocean current (a pattern called thermohaline circulation, which is discussed in a following reading). Water plunges into the deep ocean in the North Atlantic and around Antarctica and eventually raises some of the cold deep water to the surface in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. The current generally takes at least a couple hundred years, and can last as long as 1,600 to 2,000 years. Warming effects that began early during the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1800s are now being felt in the deep oceans.
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scied.ucar.edu...

Whats more this area is right on the Maud Rise, which is an underwater feature that rises from the bottom ocean floor at around 4,000 meters and the top of this formation reaches within 1,200 meters from the ocean surface.

Maud Rise: Undersea Features

What these scientists are claiming is that heat is being directed from somewhere below the Maud Rise upwards and that there is a huge amount of heat there. But again, even with a "turbulent ocean" it would take hundreds of years to about 1,000 + years for that heat to be transferred from the atmosphere down to 1,000 meters... More so since only about 100 meters of surface water moves because of the wind in the 5 oceanic gyres. For the rest of the water that moves down below it takes 1,000-2,000 years to complete a cycle.

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The data in this figure are derived from the temperature, salinity, and density of the ocean as a function of depth. The density and salinity are used to determine the heat capacity of the seawater at each depth, so that the temperature values can be converted to energy units. The instrumentation used to obtain these data is briefly described and pictured in the sidebar. The figure shows the energy content in the top 2000 meters of the ocean and the fraction that is found below 700 meters.

The figure shows that the ocean’s thermal energy gain over the 55-year period of measurements is about 24 × 1022 J in the 0-2000 m layer. About 30% of this, 7 × 1022 J, is in the lower 700-2000 m part, which indicates that a significant part of the energy gets mixed from the surface to moderately deep waters. Data for deeper abyssal waters are sparse, but suggest that they have gained only a few percent as much as the upper layers. As we have seen above, the deep water current is very slow, so not a large amount of the warmed upper layers has yet reached the bottom.
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www.acs.org...

The heat transfer by natural convection in the oceans takes approximately 100 years for heat from the top 10 meters of the oceans to transfer down to 100 meters, and we are talking about warming down to about 1,000 meters which would take hundreds of years if not more.

Not to mention that we know that the Earth started warming naturally in the early 1600s before the high rise of atmospheric CO2 from around the 1850s-1900s. But most of the warming that occurred from the 1850s to today has not reached so deep in our oceans yet. However, what is possible is that this rare event could have been caused by underwater volcanic activity. Remember that the top of the Maud Rise reaches 1,200 meters below the ocean surface, so it is a lot more likely that this heat, and this formation was caused not because of "climate change/global warming" but because of an increase in underwater volcanic activity in the Antarctic.

In the following links you will find animations, and more photos showing what has been happening to this area, and how it changed so fast within a month. The website belongs to Mark Brandon who is an environmental scientist who "during the day" researches polar oceanography.

mallemaroking.org...

mallemaroking.org...

mallemaroking.org...

Dear ATS Readers,

Thanks ElectricUniverse for this post. S&F for you on this one. Such an interesting topic really.

I must agree with you on so much that you mentioned.. it takes a long time for water to change in temp that deep.

They recently told us peons that they found over 30 volcanoes in Antartica.

I reckon this is from some unknown volcanic action and creating much warmer water that is hitting the ice sheet from below.

With the recent big increase in volcanic action worldwide, one or two in this region going off would not be surprising.

My father sailed these waters when he was in the navy aboard an ice breaker.. They sailed into this open water area a few times...in the Weddell Sea. That was back in the late 1950's..

For it "open up" so quickly, 5 days.. is what should raise some eyebrows..

Pravdaseeker





a reply to: ElectricUniverse

a reply to: pravdaseeker

Yes using ground penetrating radar they have discovered huge geothermal sources (volcanoes) youtu.be...

I'm more likely to believe that the solar storms that occurred recently, added energy to Earth's magnetic field, which in turn transferred energy down to the Earth's mantle, heating things up a bit, causing mechanical expansion of those elements and thus raising pressure. This causes earthquakes and volcanoes around the globe.

The heat being released, amounts to 800 watts/square meter. That's the equivalent of one electric bar fire every square meter. To achieve that energy output for hundreds of square kilometers would require the energy output of a power station.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Cool find , that is a big hole I wonder how deep it goes.

so it is a lot more likely that this heat, and this formation was caused not because of "climate change/global warming" but because of an increase in underwater volcanic activity in the Antarctic.

Yeah , it seems we're in a trend of if in doubt blame climate change.
The Earth is a wondrous thing , it's nice to know it can still surprise us.

I say it’s the Russians,Trump,global cooling......ehhh warming, and guns and the NRA is certainly involved!!


PS great post, star and flag OP

Newly discovered volcanoes does not necessarily mean they are new. Do you think they did not exist before we found then therefore not a possible source of heat?

originally posted by: jrod
Newly discovered volcanoes does not necessarily mean they are new. Do you think they did not exist before we found then therefore not a possible source of heat?

I have no idea what are you talking about. Please write sentences that make sense... Where did I write, or anyone else "that these volcanoes did not exist before"?...

Read the information provided before you make false arguments that were not mentioned in the op.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

It sounds to my layman's ears that for that amount of heat to make it to the surface from 4000m plus below, that it has to be volcanic/geothermal venting. In the 70's it was the size of Madagascar, this hole. Imagine the cooling of that heat coming up to the surface and you begin to sense how much energy is being created/ released way down there. It ain't just AGW.

a reply to: jrod

Newly discovered volcanoes does not necessarily mean they are new.

Also when Climate scientist write their papers and cant account for the missing heat they move on to finish where they started CO2 done it or Trump and the Russians ... The heat budget of the earth has conclusions on what they have found up to date . Finding new heat sources will throw all the conclusions in past papers out the window so correcting those numbers will add to the task of writing any new paper . Climate papers in the future should look to avoid adding any conclusions and just stick with the data .

a reply to: 727Sky

Thanks for that video, and btw new volcanoes have been discovered under Antarctica.

If you go to this website and scroll down to the video, you can watch thermal imaging of what has happened in that area.
mallemaroking.org...

The underwater heat changed suddenly within a month and produced the large hole.

Also it should be noted that volcanoes contribute a cooling effect to the atmosphere as the particles they spew out cause a dimming effect.

Figures the OP has to take a shot at and call global warming a lie.

While this is an interesting find, it does not change the human impact on the climate.

originally posted by: jrod
Also it should be noted that volcanoes contribute a cooling effect to the atmosphere as the particles they spew out cause a dimming effect.

Figures the OP has to take a shot at and call global warming a lie.

While this is an interesting find, it does not change the human impact on the climate.

Above surface volcanoes do cool with the particles in the air. Undersea ones just give heat.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Not to mention that we know that the Earth started warming naturally in the early 1600s before the high rise of atmospheric CO2 from around the 1850s-1900s.

False equivalency. The little ice age was caused by aerosols due to a series of volcanic eruptions. The rate of warming afterwards is comparable to the one preceding the Medieval warm period, which is why people tend to call it what it is: the end of a little ice age.

You're comparing said recovery with the golbal warming of 1C° due to industrialisation, which is where you've lost me.

a reply to: jrod

Also it should be noted that volcanoes contribute a cooling effect to the atmosphere as the particles they spew out cause a dimming effect.

I would think that that does not apply to the ones in the deep ocean . Which is where most of them are .

a reply to: pavil

Above surface volcanoes do cool with the particles in the air. Undersea ones just give heat.

The surface ones spew out lava and lots of heat too .

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: pavil

Above surface volcanoes do cool with the particles in the air. Undersea ones just give heat.

The surface ones spew out lava and lots of heat too .

Yes. The major cooling effect on volcanoes is achieved by the expelling of particles into the air. The undersea ones trap all of that in the water.

Volcanoes are hot. I didnt mean to imply surface ones did not release heat.

originally posted by: PublicOpinion
a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Not to mention that we know that the Earth started warming naturally in the early 1600s before the high rise of atmospheric CO2 from around the 1850s-1900s.

False equivalency. The little ice age was caused by aerosols due to a series of volcanic eruptions. The rate of warming afterwards is comparable to the one preceding the Medieval warm period, which is why people tend to call it what it is: the end of a little ice age.

You're comparing said recovery with the golbal warming of 1C° due to industrialisation, which is where you've lost me.

. So did AGW cause the Medieval Warm Period or the one during Roman Times?

a reply to: pavil

Don't forget the other elements and gases ejected too, something they never account for in their climate modelling as it's an unknown quantity.

originally posted by: Britguy
a reply to: pavil

Don't forget the other elements and gases ejected too, something they never account for in their climate modelling as it's an unknown quantity.

Yes I'm sure that's part of the reason the GW models are off. Too many variables.