How Hydrothermal Vents And Other Seabed Structures Heat Our Oceans

One of the building block principles of the climate change theory is that human emissions have anonymously warmed Earth’s oceans since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

Former NASA scientist Dr. Roy Spencer recently posted an article (here) that he contends proves superheated fluids and gases emitted from seafloor geysers, aka hydrothermal vents, have little or nothing to do with the recent accelerated warming of Earth’s oceans.

Overwhelming amounts of reliable information taken from hundreds of research studies prove that emissions of super-heated fluids and gases from the estimated 10 million ocean floor geological features, including hydrothermal vents, are responsible for warming Earth’s oceans, not human activities.

Hidden Power of Geological

If emissions from ocean floor hydrothermal geological features have significantly warmed our oceans, why have these forces remained mostly hidden? There are three reasons: Remoteness, Atmospheric Bias, and Insufficient Monitoring.

Remoteness

Seventy-one percent of the Earth’s surface is covered by oceans, which have an average depth of 14,000 feet. The bathymetry (elevation) of Earth’s ocean floors has been measured for many years utilizing sound waves, satellites, and plum line-type methods.

However, these mapping techniques are of low to moderate resolution making it extremely difficult to identify small to medium-height geological features.

Atmospheric Bias

Scientists have for many years force-fit climate trends and climate-related events into an atmospheric context insisting that the root cause of these trends and events are related to atmospheric forces.

This force-fit process does not follow proper scientific methodology because it ignores the climate influence of many other natural forces, most importantly geological forces. Force-fitting all data, observations, and trends into an atmospheric context is here termed “Atmospheric Bias“.

Utilizing varying sources of information, it can be shown that since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in 1880, most of the Earth’s atmospheric and oceanic parameters have gradually and slightly increased during the last 140 years.

For instance, atmospheric temperatures have increased by 0.013 degrees Fahrenheit per year, sea levels have risen by 0.07 inches per year, and ocean surface temperatures have increased by 0.02 degrees per year.

These values are well within normal ranges of increase since Earth entered the post-Ice Age warming period often referred to as the Interglacial Period.

Geological forces are an important component of the gradual change of ocean and atmospheric parameters. Attributing most modern-day changes on our planet to atmospheric forces is a biased and incorrect methodology.

Insufficient Monitoring

The primary reason geological forces have remained hidden is insufficient monitoring. To properly calculate the effect geological forces have on our oceans, atmosphere and climate, it is necessary to improve the current monitoring system of terrestrial and the 10 million seafloor geological features.

Nearly all the monitoring of ocean floor geological features is done by the ARGO Buoy System. There are currently 3,500 buoys that float across all of our oceans. Their position is constantly recorded and then sent by the onboard PGS system.

The buoys can control their ocean depth, record ocean temperature, and record ocean salinity. Most believe that this is a sufficient amount of data to accurately measure the warming effect of the ocean floor’s geologic features. This isn’t the case.

The buoys only descend to a depth of 6,000 feet. The average depth of the Earth’s oceans is 14,000 feet. Therefore, the buoys do not descend deep enough to accurately record many dynamics of the ocean floor’s geologic features.

One Buoy Every 40,000 Square Miles

Earth’s oceans cover 139,700,000 square miles of Earth. There are 3,500 floating and sinking ARGO Buoys. This equates to one buoy every 40,000 square miles. Described another way, that’s 0.03% of the ocean surface.

There aren’t enough buoys to construct a high-definition three-dimensional map of ocean temperature and salinity.

Geologists have known for many years that all geological features such as seafloor fault segments, volcanoes, hydrothermal vent complexes, etc. turn on and off in irregular patterns.

To calculate the frequency of on-and-off periods it is necessary to leave ocean monitoring devices atop the active or dormant geological features for a long time. Currently, this is nearly impossible to achieve.

An alternative way to achieve this goal is to significantly improve the ability of satellites to measure on and off periods and develop new buoys that can descend to 14,000 feet. By integrating these two methods it will enhance our ability to record on and of periods.

The time each geological feature emits heat before turning off is an important factor in determining the total volume emitted.

El Ninos and La Ninas

The El Nino/La Nina cycle is generated by ocean floor geological forces and not by changes in earth’s atmospheric temperature as contended by those advocating the Climate Change Theory. Here are a few of the key pieces of evidence supporting this contention.

• All El Niños and La Ninas originate at the same small geographical highly geological active ocean location here termed the fixed “Source Point” (Figure 2). They also end at the same point off the coast of South America. This information indicates that they are unlike all other major weather phenomena such as hurricanes and typhoons that originate in different specific areas and end at different specific areas.
• The surface shapes of El Niños and La Ninas are long, linear, and cone-shaped. The boundaries infer that the energy source is not moving and is very powerful. Plumes of ash emanating from land-erupting volcanoes have the same long, linear, and cone shape as El Ninos.
• The Source Point’s area is one of the most geologically active regions on Earth because it is home to the junction of five extremely active major fault systems, the second largest ocean floor lava plateau on Earth, hundreds of ocean floor volcanoes, and a tremendous number of ocean floor hydrothermal vents.
• There are helium gas plumes associated with the formation of all El Ninos. The surface shape of the plumes is long, linear, cone-shaped, has distinct boundaries, and emanates from the same Source Point of El Ninos. Helium gas plumes are proof of significant volcanic activity. (see here).
• The energy needed to generate an El Nino and then convert to a La Nina is off the chart. This amount of energy needed to fuel an El Nino/La Nina cycle cannot be of atmospheric origin.
• El Ninos and La Ninas don’t occur in any other locations in the world. Why? If they are atmospheric in origin, there should be El Ninos and La Ninas. There are none.
• Computer models that are supposed to predict the beginning and end of El Ninos and La Ninas fail (see here).

Figure 3 is a time frame slice taken from a 4-dimensional video compiled by NOAA. The video provides absolute proof that El Ninos and La Ninas are of geological origin. Here are several things to observe while watching the video.

The El Nino heat source is located at the ocean floor and not the atmosphere as contended by Dr. Spencer’s article. The warmed water is expulsed in heat bursts that do not lose their definition into surrounding ocean water until they reach the west coast of South America.

Calculating the Number of Ocean Floor Hydrothermal Vents

Dr. Spencer’s conclusion that hydrothermal vents don’t significantly influence ocean warming is invalid for another reason. He hasn’t properly taken into account the number of vents on ocean floors.

High-Resolution Mapping Ocean Floor Elevation

A high-resolution Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project was initiated in 2017. Its goal was to map the elevation of the Earth’s entire ocean floor in high resolution.

The initiative that seeks to galvanize the creation of a full map of the ocean floor says one-fifth of this task has not been completed. When the Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project was launched in 2017, only 6% of the ocean bottom had been surveyed in high resolution.

That number now stands at 19%. High-resolution maps will allow scientists to visualize and then count the true number of ocean floor geological features including hydrothermal vents.

To date, several other studies utilizing high resolution have found hundreds of heretofore uncounted geological features such as hydrothermal vents, large volcanoes, and fault segments (see here).

Continent Moving Ocean Floor Faults

There are three types of major ocean floor continent moving fault systems Pull Apart/Divergent (Figure 5), Push Under/Subduction, and Slide Sideways/Transform. The cumulative length of all three systems is 50,0000 miles.

Faults associated with all three systems extend deep into the Earth’s inner reaches where they tap into massive molten lava chambers. This molten lava is constantly moving upward along the open fault planes. When it reaches the ocean floor it acts to generate huge numbers of super-heat emitting hydrothermal vents, large volcanoes, and fault segments.

Summary

Dr. Spencer states: “Given these various pieces of evidence, it would be difficult to believe that deep-sea hydrothermal vents — actually, an increase in their heat output — can be the reason for recent ocean warming”.

Here we have shown that his conclusion is incorrect because he doesn’t take into account the enormous amount of geological information that proves that emissions from hydrothermal vents play an important role in warming Earth’s oceans.

Numerous Climate Change Dispatch articles will give the reader additional information concerning the role of ocean-floor geologic features, including hydrothermal vents, in warming our oceans (see here, here, here, here, and here).

Plate Climatology Theory Book

The “Geological Impacts on Climate” book contains numerous examples, backed by over 46 years of integrating my observations and ideas with hundreds of research studies, significant amounts of data, and mountains of information from varying types of scientific disciplines that prove geologic forces affect climate and climate-related events.

Here are a few examples: subglacial volcanoes are melting Antarctic Glaciers, superheated emissions from deep-sea faults are generating El Ninos, and a series of super-volcanic eruptions caused the extinction of dinosaurs.

Biography

James Edward Kamis is a retired geologist who has a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology from Northern Illinois University (1973) and a Master of Science degree in Geology from Idaho State University (1976). More than 46 years of research have convinced him that geological forces significantly influence, or in some cases completely control climate and climate-related events as per his Plate Climatology Theory.

Note from Author

Dr. Spencer has had a long and distinguished career at NASA. This article is in no way intended to discredit or demean him. However, his approach to estimating the impact of the ocean floor’s geologic features on the temperature of Earth’s oceans fails to take into account the significant amount of geological data and information that proves his conclusion is incorrect.