From: rmg3@access4.digex.net (Robert Grumbine)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.geo.oceanography,sci.skeptic
Subject: 4 C water Re: Melting ice & rising seas: what's the TRUTH?
Date: 22 Nov 1997 09:12:37 -0500

In article <64v4l3$u8l$1@mnementh.southern.co.nz>,
Brian Sandle <bsandle@southern.co.nz> wrote:

>Since 4 degree celsius water is more dense than colder water
>water will rise as it cools.

  This is only true for fresh water.  The ocean is salt water
with sufficient salt that for a given salinity, colder is always
denser.  This is why the deep ocean is cooler than 4 C, and indeed
why the average temperature of the ocean (most of which is deep)
is cooler than 4 C.  See, for example, Pickard, G. L. and W. J.
Emery, Descriptive Physical Oceanography: An Introduction, Pergamon
Press, 1982.

--
Robert Grumbine rmg3@access.digex.net
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences

From: rmg3@access4.digex.net (Robert Grumbine)
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.geo.oceanography,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: 4 C water Re: Melting ice & rising seas: what's the TRUTH?
Date: 23 Nov 1997 22:33:50 -0500

In article <657aqm$d8q$2@mnementh.southern.co.nz>,
Brian Sandle <bsandle@southern.co.nz> wrote:
>Robert Grumbine (rmg3@access4.digex.net) wrote:
>: In article <64v4l3$u8l$1@mnementh.southern.co.nz>,
>: Brian Sandle <bsandle@southern.co.nz> wrote:
>:
>: >Since 4 degree celsius water is more dense than colder water
>: >water will rise as it cools.
>:
>:   This is only true for fresh water.  The ocean is salt water
>: with sufficient salt that for a given salinity, colder is always
>: denser.
>
>Thanks, some rethinking is needed.

  Start with the book I cite.  It is quite readable.

>You won't dispute layers of salinity/temperature?

  ?What layers of salinity/temperature?  The ocean is stratified by
density.  Sometimes that means temperature decreases as you go down,
and some times it increases.  Ditto salinity.  The polar regions
are notable for the fact that mass transfer occurs over the whole
depth of the water column, so surface to 4000 m (speaking roundly).

  What any of this has to do with what you were trying to say,
I don't know.  I just saw you start out with a falsehood that is
perniciously common.  If you based a model on that falsehood, then
your model is almost certainly wrong also.  This is why I changed
the subject line.

  Followup directed to sci.geo.oceanography.

--
Robert Grumbine rmg3@access.digex.net http://www.access.digex.net/~rmg3/
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences