– If the pressure at the bottom of the ocean is so extreme, are the molecules pushed closer together? If so, why isn’t it hotter, if the molecules are bumping into each other more?

Question

– If the pressure at the bottom of the ocean is so extreme, are the molecules pushed closer together? If so, why isn’t it hotter, if the molecules are bumping into each other more?

In: 704

Answer 1

Even though you got good answers, I’ll have to add to the temperature at the bottom. Because the water at the bottom of the ocean IS hotter than at the surface, if we only considered the effect of the pressure. This has lead to the creation of a property called “potential temperature” in ocean science, which corrects for this factor. Without this correction you couldn’t compare the temperature at e.i. 1000m depth to 5000m. This correction is often (at the bottom) in the order of 1 degree Celsius.

Now, the actual temperature at the ocean bottom is of course much colder than at the surface, because pressure is only a very small part of the whole, and other factors matter much much more.