swThermalConductivity: Seawater Thermal Conductivity

In oce: Analysis of Oceanographic Data

Seawater Thermal Conductivity

Description

Compute seawater thermal conductivity, in W m^{-1\circ}C^{-1}

Usage

swThermalConductivity(salinity, temperature = NULL, pressure = NULL)

Arguments

salinity	salinity (PSU), or a ctd object, in which case temperature and pressure will be ignored.
temperature	in-situ temperature (^\circC), defined on the ITS-90 scale; see “Temperature units” in the documentation for swRho().
pressure	pressure (dbar)

Details

Caldwell's (1974) detailed formulation is used. To be specific, his equation 6 to calculate K, and his two sentences above that equation are used to infer this to be K(0,T,S) in his notation of equation 7. Then, application of his equations 7 and 8 is straightforward. He states an accuracy for this method of 0.3 percent. (See the check against his Table 1 in the “Examples”.)

Value

Conductivity of seawater in W m^{-1} {^\circ} C^{-1}. To calculate thermal diffusivity in m^2/s^2, divide by the product of density and specific heat, as in the example.

Author(s)

Dan Kelley

References

Caldwell, Douglas R., 1974. Thermal conductivity of seawater, Deep-sea Research, 21, 131-137.

See Also

Other functions that calculate seawater properties: T68fromT90(), T90fromT48(), T90fromT68(), computableWaterProperties(), locationForGsw(), swAbsoluteSalinity(), swAlpha(), swAlphaOverBeta(), swBeta(), swCSTp(), swConservativeTemperature(), swDepth(), swDynamicHeight(), swLapseRate(), swN2(), swPressure(), swRho(), swRrho(), swSCTp(), swSR(), swSTrho(), swSigma(), swSigma0(), swSigma1(), swSigma2(), swSigma3(), swSigma4(), swSigmaT(), swSigmaTheta(), swSoundAbsorption(), swSoundSpeed(), swSpecificHeat(), swSpice(), swSpiciness0(), swSpiciness1(), swSpiciness2(), swSstar(), swTFreeze(), swTSrho(), swTheta(), swViscosity(), swZ()

Examples

library(oce)
# Values in m^2/s, a unit that is often used instead of W/(m*degC).
swThermalConductivity(35, 10, 100) / (swRho(35, 10, 100) * swSpecificHeat(35, 10, 100)) # ocean
swThermalConductivity(0, 20, 0) / (swRho(0, 20, 0) * swSpecificHeat(0, 20, 0)) # lab
# Caldwell Table 1 gives 1478e-6 cal/(cm*sec*degC) at 31.5 o/oo, 10degC, 1kbar
joulePerCalorie <- 4.18400
cmPerM <- 100
swThermalConductivity(31.5, 10, 1000) / joulePerCalorie / cmPerM

oce documentation built on Sept. 11, 2024, 7:09 p.m.