Climate Science was thrust in the limelight by global warming a few decades ago and suddenly tasked with advising the planet on how best to address one of its most perilous challenge yet while arguably being still very much in its infancy. Indeed, Climate Science is so young (compared to more well established branches of physics) that many of its most fundamental aspects have yet to reach a mature state. Just a few examples. In oceanography, there has been much debate over the past 20 years about whether the power input due to surface buoyancy fluxes is negligible or of comparable importance to the power input due to the wind. About whether ocean mixing is a source of available potential energy for the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation or a net sink of mechanical energy. About whether diapycnal mixing should be regarded as reversible or irreversible. About how to unambiguously define the concepts of ‘diapycnal’ and ‘isopycnal’ mixing that play such a prominent role in numerical ocean climate models. In the atmosphere, we do not know for sure whether moisture enhances or reduces the performances of the atmospheric heat engine. And this is just the tip of the climate science iceberg…
The main aim of this blog is to try to shed some light on the above issues by tracking down the nature of the difficulties that have prevented the oceanographers and atmospheric scientists from reaching a consensus. To that end, my view is that the deciding arguments must ultimately be rooted in first principles. That is, they must follow logically and deductively from clearly stated premises and the full Navier-Stokes equations. I am aware that a large majority of my colleagues seem to believe that this is an impossible task. One of my key aim is to dispel this belief.
The Natural Heat Engines Enquirer 