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Maybe the heat is in the deep oceans afterall. Can anyone explain this?
OK, I'm diving off Grand Cayman. We are going down the cliff enjoying creation when suddenly I realize I'm feeling really warm. It gets worse and worse. In my 51 years as a woman I've never felt anything quite like it.
How could that happen. There is a mechanism that we simply don't understand, I guess.
8 Answers
- Jeff EngrLv 68 years ago
First of all, it is NOT possible for a diver like you are explaining to dive deep enough to "feel" the heat of the deep oceans. You would have to be far far deeper than standard scuba divers can go. standard scube do not go below 50' or 100' unless you have a lot of support and the proper equipment. Diving off Grand Cayman is NOT it.
Next, there are normal thermocline layers. Perhaps you dove below one. This is 100% natural. Submarines use the thermocline layers to help stay hidden from surface sonar. sonar wave naturally bounce off the thermocline layers helping to maks anything below the thermocline layer. Modern towed sonar arrays are used to take reading both above and below the thermocline layers for this reason.
To a lesser extend you can feel the same phenomenon in small ponds or lakes and even swimming pools that have had thier filtrations circulating systems turned off for a little while.
- pegminerLv 78 years ago
It's amazing how much variation you can get in temperature over a short distance. Growing up body surfing in California we would often notice "warm spots" surrounded by much colder water. Without much luck we'd try to follow the warm spots around in the surf. I think it all depends on how much mixing is going on, and where the water you're in is coming from. In California upwelling from deep canyons off the coast can bring up very cold water which may interfinger with shallow water heated in the sunshine.
In Grand Cayman things are quite a bit different. The warm layer is quite deep there. This time of year the Caribbean is starting to cool down from its maximum, which was probably in September. I wonder if the surface has started to cool, but the cooling hasn't reached the deeper depths yet? That's one idea anyway.
You're lucky to be there...of course I played volleyball on the beach in 80 degree temperatures today, too, so I guess my life isn't bad either.
EDIT for Jeff Engr: The thermocline is quite deep in the Caribbean--Mae did not dive below it. I'm not even sure they have a thermocline in Grand Cayman. More importantly, when you go below the thermocline, the temperature goes DOWN, not up.
- campbelp2002Lv 78 years ago
Well any depth a person can dive to is quite shallow compared to the deep ocean. So I say you experienced some local effect not related to global warming. Perhaps a hot flash?
- KanoLv 78 years ago
This is quite common, a few times I have noticed snorkelers hanging around in one place, in going over to find out what the attraction was, I found the warm spot that they were reluctant to leave.
- 8 years ago
when all the climate models were proven to be wrong concerning the predicted atmospheric temperatures, they came up with a new model that said that all the warming went into the deep oceans where there no thermometers to prove them wrong
- ?Lv 78 years ago
You were probably getting near some kind of geothermal vent. This person had the same experience. http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g147365-i261-...
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Here's an interesting report from that general area.
http://www.caymannewsservice.com/science-and-natur...
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