I must say you have got a point there Paul, no we dont live on the Ocean floor. Those Argo Computer Floats dive down to about 1 mile deep, where the ocean temp would be very constant.
Which is brings me to Canuck's very interesting find "The Mystery of GW missing Heat"
It seems that this, and similar storys are being put out because
the findings are......that the Oceans are cooling slightly??
A story based upon the 3000 Argo floaters not finding any distinct ocean warming pattern.
I am prepared to go out on a limb and suggest the data coming back from the Argo's is not sufficiently accurate to show the actual warming in
the upper last six inches of the oceansI would be prepared to bet that this in-accuracy is caused by the bad design of the floats, for the info required?
If one is prepared to establish that the hottest parts of any ocean are within the top 12 inches of the sea. Which is exactly where the interface between wave and wind is best able to pick up the oceans heat and transfer it to the atmosphere.
Unless I am mistaken these approx 4.5 ft long floating computers
(excluding antennae)do not take sea temperatures of the upper 6 inches of the sea surface. That was a great mistake.
While diving down to a mile deep, their sea temps are pretty constant, dependant upon where they are, its the last 6 inches of ocean heat, and the dirt/dust particles that are warmed by the Sun in those few inches that we would like to know the temperature of.
Looking at some temp and salinity graphs, they seem to show that they take their readings using pressure.
Allowing for various weighting variations of the individual floats, and the various different speeds they sink and rise over their max 5 year life (before the battery runs out) it does not make for a very good temp data of the top inches of sea water temperature we really want to know about.
In fact even the upper Salinity readings are suspect, since they vary due to prolonged, even heavy rainfall, or proximity to ice bergs, even river outflows.
So in my opinion there is no Heat-loss Mystery, just a misnamed idea based on inconclusive sea surface temperatures .
There is a lot of information below, this first item is quite deliberately comical.
http://wo.jcommops.org/cgi-bin/WebObject...0.3.1.1.5.1.6.0My original Gogo topic here
http://www.scienceagogo.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=24369#Post24369The rest need real study, with questions asked. If anyone got the time?
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/argo/latest_data.htmlhttp://www.argo.ucsd.edu/http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewImage.do?id=5203&aid=2429
