What is it about?
Heat uptake and temperatures in our oceans are accelerating, which current climate models could not predict. New physics was needed to model this unexpected and alarming phenomenon. While the physics of thermal energy and steady temperature within heated matter is well established, it does not explain correctly how long it takes surface ocean water to heat up the daytime or cool at night. This study shows that both times were always longer than expected from stored heat , but were steady on average. Due to the ongoing rise in global warming we show times to cool are increasing overnight so that pre-dawn temperatures are no longer stable but accelerating.
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Why is it important?
(A) This phenomenon means the time available to restore long term stability in our weather is shrinking at an alarming rate. It means we can stop the acceleration in temperature and in the rate the massive amount of extra stored heat in our oceans is rising since 1960 only if we stop the rise in CO2 and other GHG gases in earth's atmosphere. Even then stable ocean temperatures will remain high. (B) The quantum physics involved is new and reveals that in all heated matter a non-thermal store of energy co-exists with stored heat. Both photons (infrared light), and for the oceans oscillating water molecules, combine for a short time . These pairs exist as long as its partner or internal "heat bath" is present. This extra energy also doubles as natural information (not computed) on material properties.
Perspectives
Solar energy technologies and materials for energy efficiency in buildings have been the core focus of my science career and publications since the early 1970's. Fortunately during my PhD and postdoctoral research before that the main theoretical tools I used involved many body quantum physics. In around 2015 my group's work and literature survey's convinced me that the Planck models and text book treatments in use for over a century were incorrect in their treatment of radiative cooling. The solution lay in turning back 50 years to my PhD quantum tools. Incidentally Planck had been seeking a first principles model since ~1920 realising his work on matter (except a cavity) was based on unproved assumptions. In his 1949 autobiography he suggested a many body model. That suggestion is validated by this study. New experimental and theory work we expect to led to impoertnat developments .
Professor Geoff Smith
University of Technology Sydney
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A many-body quantum model is proposed as the mechanism responsible for accelerating rates of heat uptake by oceans as anthropogenic heat inputs rise, Journal of Physics Communications, November 2024, Institute of Physics Publishing,
DOI: 10.1088/2399-6528/ad8f11.
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