[HardlyCurious]

I'm trying to understand how climate change can cause a heat wave in the ocean. Not saying Im skeptical curious, but I just want an explanation.

Temperature always tries to diffuse, increasing entropy in the process. So if there is an especially hot body of water due to climate change it means that water had to be in contact with air of higher temperature. And the water is currently hitting temps above the air temperature for the area. Key largo for example has highs in the 88-90 range this week. Heat index is much hotter because of the humidity, but that isn't relevant for heat transfer into the ocean from the air.

I get water is warmer on average because of global warming. So I get any hot spots will be hotter on average in a warmer world. I just don't get how water is ending up hotter then the air.

Is there some geothermal source we haven't identified?

Edit: So a number of responses have brought up solar heating, often in very dismissive ways. I'm certainly aware of solar heating of water, but the solar heating is the part of the equation that isn't changing. So yes, solar heating can make water hotter then the air, but I wouldn't expect the offset to be changed with or without global warming. Meaning that the delta between the normal ocean temp and this anomaly shouldn't be larger then the delta between normal air temp and the current air temp.

What I should have made more clear in my comment was that I didn't understand how a heat surge above air temperatures could be attributed to a atmospheric heat source such as GHGs.

[throwaway72762]

If you're sincerely interested the IPCC reports and their summaries describe the basic science and the projections and are surprisingly readable if you're willing to read scientific writing.

[Jtsummers]

> Temperature always tries to diffuse, increasing entropy in the process. So if there is an especially hot body of water due to climate change it means that water had to be in contact with air of higher temperature.

A lot of light passes through the atmosphere and that energy is absorbed and reflected by the solid and liquid surfaces below the atmosphere (the amount absorbed or reflected depending on albedo and other properties of the material). The energy heating the ground or the ocean does not all come from the atmosphere itself (though certainly some does).

[Solvency]

Big glowing sun ball make hot. Ocean get shallow close to land. Shallow water get hot.

[empath-nirvana]

This particular buoy is in shallow water in waters with seagrass and run off from the land.

In general though, the ocean is _vast_ and stores a lot of heat, and changes temperature slower than the air does. When it's cold outside, the ocean radiates heat to warm the air and vice versa.

[HardlyCurious]

Maybe the question should be, what is the normal summer high for these buoys? Headlines make it sound like a significant departure, but I don't think I have seen any article talking what the normal summertime high temps are. Maybe its a case of sensational media misleading for headline clicks.

[soulofmischief]

Conduction is just one type of heat transfer. There is also heat from radiation from sources such as the Sun.

Furthermore, an increased level of dissolved CO2 in the water is increasing its susceptibility to warming.

And then you have greenhouse gases, which are good at trapping in heat once it's entered the atmosphere. The ocean has the capacity to absorb this heat while it's trapped.

[code_duck]

The same reason people have been falling down in Arizona and suffering burns from the ground, but the air doesn’t burn them.

[kerowak]

sun