– 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?
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Yes, the molecules are pushed closer together. Not by much, because water isn’t very compressible, but still closer.
Temperature is basically the average kinetic energy of the molecules; bumping into each other more doesn’t mean higher temperature. Molecules going faster does. You may be thinking of the heating you get when you compress a gas suddenly…in that case, they *do* go faster because you’ve increased the energy in the system by compressing it and the energy had nowhere to go. Water in the ocean has plenty of places for energy to go…water has *huge* heat capacity…huge changes in energy result in very low changes in temperature. And, because it’s so in-compressible, there’s very little energy added in the compression.
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