The Ocean Is Starting To Lose Its Memory, Scientists Warn (sciencealert.com) 70
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScienceAlert: The oceans that surround us are transforming. As our climate changes, the world's waters are shifting too, with abnormalities evident not only in the ocean's temperature, but also its structure, currents, and even its color. As these changes manifest, the usually stable environment of the ocean is becoming more unpredictable and erratic, and in some ways the phenomenon is akin to the ocean losing its memory, scientists suggest. "Ocean memory, the persistence of ocean conditions, is a major source of predictability in the climate system beyond weather time scales," researchers explain in a new paper led by first author and climate researcher Hui Shi from the Farallon Institute in Petaluma, California. "We show that ocean memory, as measured by the year-to-year persistence of sea surface temperature anomalies, is projected to steadily decline in the coming decades over much of the globe."
In the research, the team studied sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the shallow top layer of the ocean, called the upper-ocean mixed layer (MLD). Despite the MLD's relative shallowness -- extending only to a depth of about 50 meters down from the ocean's surface -- this upper layer of water exhibits a lot of persistence over time in terms of thermal inertia, especially compared to the variations seen in the atmosphere above. In the future, however, modeling suggests that this 'memory' effect of thermal inertia in the upper ocean is set to decline globally over the rest of the century, with dramatically greater variations in temperature predicted over coming decades.
According to the researchers, shoaling effects in the MLD will introduce greater levels of water-mixing in the upper ocean, effectively thinning out the top layer. This is expected to lower the ocean's capacity for thermal inertia, rendering the upper ocean more susceptible to random temperature anomalies. Just what that means for marine wildlife is unclear, but the researchers note that "consequential impacts on populations are likely," although some species are expected to fare better than others in terms of adaptation. On another note, the ocean memory decline is expected to make it significantly harder for scientists to forecast upcoming ocean dynamics, reducing reliable lead times for all sorts of predictions related to SSTs. This will hinder our ability to project monsoons, marine heatwaves (MHWs), and periods of extreme weather, among other things. The findings have been published in the journal Science Advances.
In the research, the team studied sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the shallow top layer of the ocean, called the upper-ocean mixed layer (MLD). Despite the MLD's relative shallowness -- extending only to a depth of about 50 meters down from the ocean's surface -- this upper layer of water exhibits a lot of persistence over time in terms of thermal inertia, especially compared to the variations seen in the atmosphere above. In the future, however, modeling suggests that this 'memory' effect of thermal inertia in the upper ocean is set to decline globally over the rest of the century, with dramatically greater variations in temperature predicted over coming decades.
According to the researchers, shoaling effects in the MLD will introduce greater levels of water-mixing in the upper ocean, effectively thinning out the top layer. This is expected to lower the ocean's capacity for thermal inertia, rendering the upper ocean more susceptible to random temperature anomalies. Just what that means for marine wildlife is unclear, but the researchers note that "consequential impacts on populations are likely," although some species are expected to fare better than others in terms of adaptation. On another note, the ocean memory decline is expected to make it significantly harder for scientists to forecast upcoming ocean dynamics, reducing reliable lead times for all sorts of predictions related to SSTs. This will hinder our ability to project monsoons, marine heatwaves (MHWs), and periods of extreme weather, among other things. The findings have been published in the journal Science Advances.
come home, mother Gaia (Score:5, Insightful)
I support climate science, and all science, but these sentient headlines are getting a little ridiculous.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Even more strange of a twist is the extreme conservatism of modern climate science. It's denying change in the principle, and selling as universal good the pipe dream of being able to have a snapshot of how planet was some time in the recent past and desperately holding on to it as if it's the status quo of "how things should be".
In spite of the fact that the main constant about environment is that it's always changing. I guess like everyone else, original environmentalists of 1960s... became old and conser
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The problem is not with change but with the nature of the change.
The science illiteracy of Slashdot is depressing.
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It's denying change in the principle, and selling as universal good the pipe dream of being able to have a snapshot of how planet was some time in the recent past
Yes, it's what enabled us naked apes to exist. That's "good" as we measure it.
as if it's the status quo of "how things should be".
Dude. Seriously. Status quo literally means what is. Words have meanings and when you abuse them people know you don't know what you're talking about. You're only hurting yourself.
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Regardless of climate change or not, we probably should stop emissions as soon as possible, as they're literally murder of millions of people per year.
If i lock down some random people in a building and kill em with CO2, i go arrested. When the oil corporations do so in a large scale, they get government money.
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It's important to know how bad the effects of climate change will be, because it lets us know what kind of drastic measures we should take. Should we immediately get rid of all our natural gas power plants, no matter the cost? Are we able to slowly roll out solar and wind (which relies on natural gas until better battery solutions can be found)? Can we wait for the technology to evolve naturally, or should we encourage it with subsidies? All these question are important.
That said, getting rid of coal is a g
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So far i think the main goal should be to improve energy storage at all costs.
There are a lot of problems that could be solved by good enough batteries, such as for example power transmission, cheap electric vehicles, allowing solar power to be used at night etc..
Keeping an direct electric grid, specially an AC grid is hell, because you have to keep the generators in sync with the grid, do realtime hell power managing etc..
If every city had a huge battery, it would make power just work.
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Except that it doesn't, in any of the areas you listed.
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I don't know, with an attitude like that, you should probably stay away from the beaches for a while.
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As long as the ocean doesn't remember me, I think I'm ok.
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Oceans hate it when we anthropomorphize them.
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I do too. I prefer to be remembered as nonsentient.
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Your boss already does.
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Headlines want to be sentient.
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A sentient headline is the saddest thing I've thought about all day.
Terrible analogy! (Score:4, Insightful)
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It seems like inertia or thermal momentum or something would be a better description...
That depends on who the article is aimed at.
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Based on what they're saying in the article... It seems like inertia or thermal momentum or something would be a better description...
Looking at the actual paper it seems that "thermal inertia", as they call it, is one source of ocean memory but there are other sources of memory such as interaction with the atmosphere. I'm guessing the scientists chose the term "memory" for a reason since it's not as simple as just the inertia.
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Looking at the actual paper it seems that "thermal inertia", as they call it, is one source of ocean memory but there are other sources of memory such as interaction with the atmosphere.
It's all either inertia or heat energy, literally. And if the state of the atmosphere is relevant to the state of the ocean then you really can't separate the atmosphere and oceanic systems, in order to have a meaningful discussion about either you have to include the other. Besides, they are both massive and fluid, and they have an enormous area of interface. It would be shocking if they didn't dramatically affect one another, transfer a lot of energy back and forth, etc.
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It's all either inertia or heat energy, literally.
Please read the paper. In the paper it is explicitly stated that there are other sources of memory separate from heat energy. Happy to have you disagree but just stating it without explanation doesn't convince me.
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It's all either inertia or heat energy, literally.
Please read the paper. In the paper it is explicitly stated that there are other sources of memory separate from heat energy.
First, you just quoted a sentence you ignored half of. This is getting to be a trend around here. Thanks for quoting, though.
The abstract of the paper says that the memory-loss effects are dominated by "shoaling of the upper-ocean mixed layer depth in response to global surface warming". Whatever they mean by shoaling, it isn't what the word means in English, since it has to do with schooling fish or sand accumulation. It seems like they're stating that the layer is reducing in thickness. That's a very weir
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The key point you are missing here is that it is becoming inertial as other memory effects are being overwhelmed by random inertial based effects.
Imagine, for example, a coastal ecosystem which can be bistable - either reeds which give off warm air or open water which gives off colder air. Imagine that the reeds form best in cold air and the open water forms best in warm air (because the local animals eat the reed seedlings). The warm air coming from the reeds could be the trigger of a large scale local
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The Gaia concept doesn't involve intelligence, it's simply an observation of Lovelock's that the geology plus biosphere as a combined entity behaves in many respects like a living organism.
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"Stability" seems like a better word for it than "memory".
The Earth is becoming incontinent? (Score:2)
How will the Earth's upcoming incontinence affect us? Will we all become water dwellers?
Re: The Earth is becoming incontinent? (Score:5, Informative)
Science tries a lot to reuse words that would have more meaning to the laymen. Physics originally did this the most such as calling quarks by colors to denote thier flavors.
More so it's not clear to me even if thermal momentum is adequate. For all intensive purposes momentum refers to systems that aren't chaotic, so even if a layman understands these terms, it's not clear thier conclusions would be fair from understanding it.
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According to wikipedia, the original model for quarks called them up, down, and strange (they proposed three types at the time). Do you have any material about naming them for colors?
For all intensive purposes
For all intents and purposes.
Experiment (Score:2)
I wonder what would happen if one measured the temperature layers in a pot of simmering water just as the inertial rivulets are visible flowing on the surface. Would the top layer (MLD) start to thin out then break down entirely at the commencement of the boil?
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I doubt it. Turbulence and turnover, and the loss of thermal energy to the air, probably mean that if there is any practically measurable difference in the temperature of the water at the surface it is lower, since it takes heat energy to drive evaporation, and the heat source is at the bottom. But even while simmering you can literally see the thermal turnover. I did a very quick and lazy google search and didn't come up with anything but I'm interested if you find something.
going to wreak havoc on homeopathic medicine (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, if water is losing its memory, what good is diluting your cure with water until there's not a molecule left of the cure? All the percussive thumping in the world won't help you.
Clearly, the water is getting Alzheimer's, and clearly, we can cure it by diluting the water with more water until there is no more water left. Actually, that should save on costs. We can just sell bottled air.
sky's memory (Score:2)
And the sky says its memory just wisps away on the wind.
Welcome to 60 (Score:2)
My short term memory left me right around when Google came out. Coincidence?
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health... [nih.gov]
What bruh?
--
Don't call the world dirty because you forgot to clean your glasses. - Aaron Hill
Panic-filled click-bait (Score:2)
Good grief. Now we have to anthropomorphize water, because there aren't already enough panic-filled headlines out there. Just stop, already.
I suppose I have to add: I'm not objecting to their climate-change position. I'm protesting crap journalism, which is honestly counterproductive to the presumed goals of the author, because basically no one takes tabloid journalism seriously.
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If we've learned anything, it's that people only take tabloid journalism seriously...
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That's kind of a sad thought. I've been wondering lately how the era of yellow journalism came to an end.
Re:Panic-filled click-bait (Score:5, Interesting)
Obviously the process here isn't the same, but in neither case is memory in the traditional sense involved.
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Memory doesn't just mean "things people remember". It's a term for "information storage". Memory foam could be used to record information encoded into the shape (e.g. number of kinks == a count of beer bottles drank) and so it's a completely legitimate use of the name. The suggestion in the article is that the "memory" of the ocean means that patterns that happened before will occur again since the ocean now is affected by the patterns it had in the past. This is supposed to be a computing / "nerd" site and
Re: Panic-filled click-bait (Score:2)
This is supposed to be a computing / "nerd" site and it's a bit shocking to have everyone coming here and forgetting that second meaning of "memory" given that we use it all the time.
Everyone? I'm just saying, if you made a list of active posters that, for example, use words like sjw and woke a lot, if you catch my drift, bradley13 at the top of the thread would already be on it. I didn't say make a list of right wingers!! Just put all the people you think might be predisposed to being wrong a lot on it.
It makes posts like the top of this thread a whole lot less shocking is all I'm saying. For tech biases I just go by memory, that person hates Apple, that dude boycotts Sony, might b
memory in all it's forms... oceanic state machines (Score:2)
Everyone?
Yeah.... Fair comment, "everyone who's desperate to post first on any climate change article". I guess I shouldn't be propagating their subjects lines.
TBH though, I just liked N1AK's example of memory foam and wished it wasn't quite as defensive.
I'm thinking about how to build some form of bistable latch in sea water flow. I imagine two deep cells next to each other; if a cold flow comes above them, then the one which is already cold would absorb cold water and so remain colder whilst the one next door woul
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So... homeopathy was right? (Score:2)
Water has a memory?
Maybe we should be glad it at least doesn't hold grudges considering how much we use it to flush down our shit. Anyone ever analyzed how it remembers that one molecule of homepathetic medicine it encountered but not the tons of shit?
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Hey, I'm a happy guy whenever some con artist parts some idiots and their money. It's heaps of entertainment.
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You really want to compare "memory", as in, material formed into a particular shape to retain it and "memory" as in, material "remembering" what it came into contact with?
Ok, believe in whatever woo you want. If you idiots just croaked instead of wasting precious hospital space when you finally realize that your faith healing doesn't work, I could actually at least ignore it. Sadly, you don't do that.
The Pacific (Score:3)
You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory.
Andy Dufresne
We know (Score:2)
After 4 billion years, we noticed they are getting a bit funny and confused.
Look at the source please ... (Score:2)
Never heard of the journal and the bit about " ... essentially thinning ..." gave pause for thought.
After some search found out it's a pay-to-publish journal ($4500 per) [wikipedia.org].
Not saying all pay-to-publish is garbage but certainly take it with a grain of salt. Someone has a vested interest in publishing the article and could not get it published elsewhere?
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It's just an exploratory study that develops a hypothesis. It was done with computer modeling. In that sense it is kind of like string theory. It should be taken as fact until there is more evidence supporting it.
I love the Pixies (Score:2)
"I was swimmin' in the Caribbean
Animals were hiding behind the rocks
Except the little fish
Bumped into me, I swear he was trying to talk to me, koi-koi
Where is my mind?
Where is my mind?
Where is my mind?
Way out in the water, see it swimmin..."
Anonymous submitter--you're safe (Score:2)
Since you submitted the story anonymously, perhaps you were afraid of retaliation by the ocean. Don't worry, the ocean is losing its memory, it won't come after you for exposing its problems!
Oh, NO! It's getting even HARDER to predict... (Score:2)
Oh, NO! Climate Change is making it even HARDER to make accurate predictions of Climate Change! Where will our grants come from now.
(But cheer up. Now we have a new excuse when our predictions are off, wildly wrong, or go the opposite way from what actually happens. Climate Change broke predicting Climate Change, so it's not our fault. Shame on you for farting, raising cows that burp, and not immediately shutting down all fossil fuel use and much of the economy.!)